Fighting For Our Lives (updated version)
by EmilyAnn003
Summary: Seventeen year old Emily Ryan faces the challenge of her life when the average family vacation ends up being more than she payed for. Just when she's about to lose hope, the man of her dreams, Leon S. Kennedy, steps up and saves the day. But can he continue to keep doing so before time runs out?
1. Chapter 1

_Hey guys! Wow, when's the last time you heard from me? Sorry about that. I've just been suffering from severe writer's block and laziness. However! A while back I decided to randomly re-read and edit FFOL into a novel-like format. The chapters are shorter, and Emily is a little less Mary-Sue, and a little more realistic. Or at least I'd like to think so. But yeah! If you liked FFOL and care to re-read it, as it was last updated over a year ago, feel free to follow this story! I will be updating each new chapter once or twice a day. Enjoy!_

I pulled my thin jacket over my shivering shoulders as I proceeded to walk down the dirt road I had somehow found myself on.

"I knew it was a bad idea to come here…" I said to no one in particular.

I continued walking for about another 20 minutes until I came upon a giant, old-fashioned looking wooden bridge. Cautiously, I slowly made my way across it, taking soft footsteps.

When I stepped off of the bridge, I found myself standing in a very peculiar place. There was a small path that led to an old, abandoned-looking house, and trees surrounding the area.

"Ugh! No more trees!" I shouted. I had been walking the entire day and had been forced to look at nothing but trees, trees, and more trees. I sighed and reluctantly continued up the path.

The house looked bigger, and emptier than it had a few yards ago. I cautiously made my way up the porch steps and saw the door standing wide open.

"Weird…" I said to no one again.

I stepped up onto the porch and knocked on the door.

"Hello?" I called out. No answer.

I knocked louder. "Hello?" I said again. And again there was no answer.

I cautiously stepped inside the house, desperate to find out where the hell I was, when I heard coughing coming from the next room. I peeked around the corner and saw the coughing was coming from a man, probably in his mid-forties, and was very dirty-looking. I exhaled in relief and walked up to him.

"Um… excuse me, sir?"

When he didn't turn around I walked closer.

"I was wondering if you might be able to tell me where I am."

The man turned around and that was when I realized just how foreboding he was.

I gasped and took a few steps back, bumping into a table.

"_Que carajo esta haciendo aqui? Largate perra!_"

My eyes grew wide when I realized what he had just said to me. "O-okay…"

I turned around and started walking back to the door when I heard what sounded like the man picking something up. I glanced back just in time to see him try to slice me in half with a rusty axe. Screaming, I barely dodged his attack.

"_What the hell is wrong with you?" _I shouted at him in Spanish as he slowly made his way to me, axe in hand.

That was when I heard someone yell "Get down!" from behind me.

I was confused at first, but did as I was told. I squatted down, burying my face in my lap, and covering my head with my arms.

Two gun shots were fired and I heard the old man fall to the floor with a grunt.

I carefully stood up, dusted myself off, and looked at the man who had just saved my life. He was a tall, muscular man, who was probably in his twenties. He had blonde, Jack Dawson looking hair, and was _very_ (emphasis on _VERY_) handsome. He also had a few grenades, a gun, and some sort of aerosol can on him.

He opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by a car engine starting. We both ran to the window and watched as one car drove the other off a cliff, and two Spanish police officers were murdered.

"_Shit!_" he shouted.

He quickly pulled out what looked like some sort of walkie-talkie and began talking to somebody on it.

"Is everything okay?" A woman asked.

"There was a hostile local. I had no choice but to neutralize him. There are still others surrounding the area." He explained to the woman.

"Get out of there and head toward the village. Take whatever measures necessary to save the subject."

_Subject?_ I thought.

"Understood," "He said. "But uh… there's also a girl here. She looks lost." He said, looking at me. I suddenly felt very self-conscious.

"Do you know her name?"

The man turned to me and asked, "What's your name?"

My mom had always told me never to talk to strangers, but something about him felt… safe.

"E-Emily. Emily Ryan." I stammered.

He nodded and turned back to his walkie-talkie.

"Her name's Emily Ryan." He said to the woman.

"Okay. I'll contact her parents and-"

"You can't." I said.

"Why not?" The man asked.

"They're dead."

_And thus, the end of chapter one! I'll try to get chapter two up as soon as possible. Thanks for reading, I'll see you soon! xx_


	2. Chapter 2

_Aaaand here's chapter 2. Oh, and about the third addition to this series, I think I may have changed my mind about that. I'm still not sure. I'll keep you posted. Oh well, enjoy!_

The man of whom I still did not know the name of gave me a look of confusion and sympathy, and turned back to the woman. "She said they're-"

"I heard." She interrupted.

"Well, we can't just leave her here... She can tag along with me." He looked at me, and for the first time in _days_ I felt a spark of hope.

"I don't know, Leon." _Leon? Was that his name?_ "You don't need any distractions on this mission."

"I think I can manage having another person with me." He said.

I decided to stare at my now ruined black Converse, just for the sake of avoiding eye contact.

"Okay. Once you find Ashley, I'll send a chopper over and she can just ride back to American with you and Ms. Graham."

"Got it." The man said and he hung up.

He walked up to me and held out his hand. I shook it awkwardly.

"My name's Leon. I guess you're gonna be tagging along with me for a while."

"Yep…"

"So how old are you?"

"I turned seventeen two months ago."

He eyed me up and down. I could tell he was looking at my outfit. I was wearing black shorts that came to about the middle of my thigh, a light blue baggy tank top over a form fitting black one, a thin grey unzipped jacket, and black Chucks. My brown hair was pulled back into a high ponytail with my bangs in my face, and to top it all off, dark, smoky eye shadow that was probably smeared.

"Alright… let me go get these guys. _Stay here_." He ordered.

"I can do that." I nodded, and Leon went back outside.

Once he was gone, I looked around to see if there was anything I could use to fight with.

I picked up the axe and noticed how dull it was, but that didn't make me doubt it's ability to slice me in half.

I walked past the fireplace and through a doorway. There was a little space beside the stairway and I gasped at what I saw: skulls, dozens of them. There were maggots crawling all over and in them. I nearly vomited but I stopped myself. _Who would do such a thing…? _I thought.

I turned around and walked up the stairs. I came up to a larger window, about half the size of the wall, and peered out of it. There was a perfect view of the front lawn where Leon was currently fighting off more of those hostile men.

Turning around, I expected to see a long hallway with multiple doors, but only saw a small wooden table with a box of handgun ammo. I shrugged and put it in my pocket, thinking that maybe Leon could use it.

I glanced back out the window and saw that Leon had killed all of the men, and was now coming back into the house. I ran down the stairs to meet him back in the main area.

"I thought I told you to stay here." He said, annoyed.

"Relax, nothing happened." I told him, waving my hand in dismissal. "And here… I found this." I tossed him the red box.

"Uh… thanks." He said as he pocketed the ammunition.

"No problem. So… where are we?" I asked.

"Some part of Spain. I don't know the city name though."

"Oh… Well… Where to now?"

"Uh… We need to somehow find our way to the village. Come on, I saw a path by the house."

Leon and I began walking out of the house and towards the 'village'. We turned to the left of the house and walked through two fences, where a truck was parked before.

To the right, stood a wooden shed. We entered the shed and there were a few boxes and a typewriter in it.

"What do you think the typewriter's for?" I asked.

"Hmm… I don't know." Leon said.

"Do you think they keep diaries around here or something?"

Leon chuckled. "Maybe."

We exited the shed and kept walking down the dirt path.

"Hey, L-Leon?" I said a few seconds later.

"Yeah?"

"Can I shoot your gun?" I asked.

"Uh… I don't think that's such a good idea…"

"Oh come on, _please?_ What if somebody tries to attack me like that other guy and you're not around?"

He didn't say anything; he just stopped and started at me.

"Fine." He said handing me the gun, which was surprisingly heavier than it looked. "Try shooting those birds over there."

He pointed to two black crows. One was sitting on the ground, and the other was perched on a sign.

"What did they do to you?"

He shrugged his well-built shoulders. "Well, they're kind of annoying."

I looked at the gun, and back at the birds. I _really_ wanted to shoot the gun, and they _were_ getting annoying…

"Okay..."

I planted my feet firmly on the ground, shoulder width apart, held the gun with two hands, and carefully raised it up. Taking a calming deep breath, I aimed, shot one bird, then two, only missing once, but not by far.

I smiled up at Leon, who looked flabbergasted, and asked "Did I do good?"

"Good? That was actually… um..." He cleared his throat. "... pretty impressive. Where'd you learn to shoot like that?"

I shrugged and gave him his gun back. "I play a lot of shooting games."

He chuckled and said, "Alright, let's go."

We began walking down the path again and we passed a really disturbing signpost. I unconsciously inched closer to the man beside me. Right past the signpost, there was a beautiful gray dog who had its leg caught in a bear trap. While Leon helped him, I walked a little ways off the beaten path and found a plant that looked much like the green one we had found earlier, except this one was red.

Once Leon was done helping the dog, I asked him what the plants were. He said they were called herbs, and that when eaten they give you more health.

"Like medicine?" I asked.

"Yeah, exactly. Except, these heal you almost instantly."

Then he told me that you can only eat the red or yellow herbs if they're mixed with a green herb.

"What does it taste like?" I asked, letting my curiosity get the best of me.

"I don't know… just like a plant, I guess. The Earth. I'll let you try one later."

I nodded and we kept walking.

At the bottom of the hill we were currently standing on, there were four trees. In between each tree (except the two trees in the middle) there were bombs.

As if it were nothing, Leon shot both wires and we proceeded down the path. Leon walked through the two trees on the left that used to have bombs on it, and I walked through the middle, where there were no bombs, to make the OCD part of my brain happy.

Suddenly, I heard a loud '_SNAP!_' and felt a sharp pain shoot up my right leg.

_Thus, the end of chapter two. How'd you like it? See and differences? Let me know in the review box below, and don't hold back. As long as it's constructive, all criticism is welcome and appreciated!_


	3. Chapter 3

_Tada! Chapter 3! Thanks for all your lovely review, and as I promised, chapter 4 will most likely be up right after this one. Enjoy!_

"_Un forastero!_" Mentally translating it, I heard "_An outsider!_" Tears were pouring down my face from pain and fear as I shouted "_Leon!"_

Instantly the man was on the ground and Leon was at my side.

"Shit… your leg is caught. Now this is going to hurt…" He looked at me and I took a deep breath before nodding and saying "Okay…"

I couldn't help but let a cry of pain escape my lips when Leon pulled the bear trap off my leg. Once it was out I lost balance and nearly fell over, but Leon caught me before I could.

"Take it easy." He said as he sat me down on the dead grass.

I let out a mix between a laugh and a sob and said, "Sorry... I usually have a higher tolerance for pain."

"It's fine, I know it hurts… Here… this stuff will take care of everything." He pulled out the aerosol can labeled 'First Aid Spray' and said, "But, just to warn you, it stings like a bitch."

After thinking for a minute, I took off my jacket and clutched it tightly. "Okay… I'm ready."

I held on to my jacket with all my might while Leon sprayed my leg with the first aid spray. When he was finished bandaging my leg, he helped me stand up, which also hurt like a bitch, mind you.

After a few more curse words, and scoldings from the man who was carefully bandaging my wounded leg, I finally managed to get back on my feet.

"S-sorry…" I said, looking at the ground.

"For what?" He asked.

"For slowing you down… I should have paid better attention to where I was going."

He sighed and said, "It's not your fault, things like this happen. You just have to get up, and keep moving. You can't beat yourself up over everything that happens."

I simply nodded and kept looking at the ground.

"Okay…" He said. "Let's go."

We kept walking through the endless maze of trees and eventually came to yet _another_ shed. "Holy _shit!_" Leon cursed under his breath after stepping foot into it.

I ran after him and froze. There was a woman. On the wall. With a pitchfork through her face.

"Tha-that could have been me…"

Leon quickly grabbed my hand and pulled me out of there.

My eyes were wide as we ran, but we didn't run for long; there were two guys blocking the bridge we needed to cross. Leon easily took them down and we crossed the bridge. I looked up and saw three creepy men at the top of a cliff.

"What are they doing up there?" I asked the man beside me.

"No idea."

I guess they didn't like us looking at them, because they ran away after I said that. We kept walking and came up to yet another wooden shack. This one was lacking the corpse on the wall, but it had another man inside wielding an axe. Leon took him down with one shot.

Right past the shed there were doors. Two big, creepy doors.

"We goin' in that?"

"Yep."

"Guess we have no other choice, right?"

"Mhmm." Leon said as he opened the doors.

I took a deep breath and followed him through.


	4. Chapter 4

_See? Just as I said. New chapter all shiny and pretty and... new. Well, anyways. Not much to say. Sorry about the last chapter being so short, I told you they would be shorter. But oh well! Enjoy chapter 4! :]_

After we walked through the gate, Leon's walkie-talkie went off again.

"Leon, how ya holdin' up?" The woman asked.

"Bad question Hunnigan…" Leon replied. _Hunnigan...? So __**that's**__ her name!_

"Sorry to hear that. I'm sending you a playing manual."

"I'll take a look at it, thanks."

After he hung up, I turned to him and asked, "A _playing manual?_ Like... in video games?"

"No, uh, it's basically like a map." He held out his walkie-talkie and showed me the screen. There were a bunch of random numbers and codes that I didn't understand.

"Looks complicated." I said, for lack of a better word.

"Eh, not really. It's actually pretty simple once you get the hang of it."

"Well, will I ever get the chance to '_get the hang of it_'?"

"Yeah, I guess I could teach you later."

"Cool." I smiled at him, and he grinned back before we both continued walking.

We came up to a tree, and the entrance to the village. Leon took out his binoculars and furrowed his brows. I tried to peer through the branches of dry trees, but the forest was too dense, and the village too far away to see.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Come on." Was all he said as he grabbed my arm and pulled me along some trail that was invisible to my naked eyes.

Immediately after entering the village, a woman shouted,"_Alli esta!_"

"They see us!" I cried to Leon as he turned and ran past a cluster of old and worn buildings, pulling me along with him.

We stopped in the middle of the village, now surrounded by sinister-looking men and women, next to a roasting corpse. I had no time to gag, or even think about that, because Leon was already pulling me away, shooting at random people.

We ran into a two story house, and Leon quickly blocked the door. He peeked out a small, rectangular window, too small for anybody to get in through, and I heard him whisper something, though I couldn't understand what.

He quickly turned to me and said "Emily, go hide upstairs!"

"What? Why?" I asked, beginning to panic.

"Just go!"

The loud sound of a chainsaw was heard from outside and the windows began breaking. Yep. Definitely panicked.

"Son of a..." Leon said, just above a whisper.

I quickly glanced around the room for a place to hide and the only place I could find was behind the stairs. I ran behind them just as the downstairs window was being broken into.

Leon ran back behind the stairs too, and stood in front of me. He was either being protective, or he was just trying to get an overall view. Probably both.

A surplus of villagers armed with pitchforks, axes, and even kitchen knives, came crawling in through the window.

Not even a second after they were in the house, Leon began shooting them, one after the other. I was studying him. Studying how his arm tensed up right before he pulled the trigger, how his hair fell into his eyes when he would reload. And how worried _I_ would get when one of those _things_ got too close. But he always shot them. It was the same routine: Shoot the closest person, and run up and kick him, knocking the others back a few steps. Shoot, run kick. Shoot, run, kick, etc.

Sometimes one of the person's head would explode, sending blood and guts flying everywhere. It made me think of my parents. I had never wanted my mom more than anything at that moment. But I would never see her again. Both my parents were dead. Gone. None existing, out of this world, taken away from me. They-

"Emily, get down!" Leon shouted, snapping me out of my thoughts and back to reality.

"What?" I shouted back over the noise.

"_Get down!_"

I crouched down and blocked my face just as a grenade went off. Looking up, I saw a man with a chainsaw get up. _When did he get here?_ I thought. _How long had I been out of it?_

_Ding!...Ding!...Ding!_

Everyone dropped everything. It was like they were being controlled, one by one the men and women exited the building we were in and ran outside, followed by me and Leon.

"_La campara…_" A villager said.

"The bell…" I translated aloud, glancing around quickly at all of the villagers. Leon looked at me with confusion.

"_Es hora de razar…_" Said another villager.

"It's time to pray…" I said, and Leon glanced up at the bell.

"_Tenemos que irnos…"_

"We gotta get outa here…"

Just then, all of the villagers began walking slowly to a door with a red insignia on it. As a man passed by me, I heard him say '_Lord Saddler'_, whoever that was.

Once everyone left, Leon turned to me and said, "You know Spanish?"

"What?" I asked, confused, and out of my trance.

"You speak Spanish. Whatever they said, you translated into English."

"I did? Sorry… I tend to do that. I've been taking Spanish for the past four years."

After Leon nodded in understandment, his walkie-talkie went off again.

Before the woman could speak, Leon said "Hunnigan, I have some bad news. I've confirmed the body of an officer. Some things happened to the people here…"

"Leon, you need to get out of there. Look for a tower, and follow a trail near it."

"Got it."

_Aaannd there's chapter four. How's everyone doing? Anyone asleep yet? No? Good! I really hope you're enjoying this so far, and as always, please tell me what you think in the review box down below. Thanks for reading, guys! I'll see you next time! ^^_


	5. Chapter 5

_Hey guys. Sorry for the late update, but here it is! Sorry to keep you waiting! Enjoy~!_

He hung up and sighed, running his fingers through his hair.

"How does she know to look for a tower?" I asked.

"Oh, uh… That's kinda what the manual is."

"So she tells you where to go?"

"Kinda. Like I said, it's complicated."

"Oh… So where do we go now?"

"Well… she said to follow a trail near a tower… And there's the tower, so come on, this way."

"Wait! Don't you want to see if there's anything useful around here?"

"I guess it couldn't hurt."

And it didn't. It helped _a lot_. We found ammo, herbs, and _loads_ of money. And in the upstairs of the house we were in, there was a fully loaded shotgun.

After we were done looting, we began walking up the path beside the house, and entered one last shed.

"Hmm… That's weird." Leon said, as he ripped a piece of paper off the wall.

"What is?" I asked.

"There's a note here… I can't read it though, it's in Spanish."

"Here, let me see." Leon handed me the note and I began translating it.

"_Recently there has been information that a United States government agent is here... _ uh… _ investigating the village with a female American citizen. We do not know if she is an agent or not, but we advise you not to take any chances._" I gulped and looked at Leon, who motioned for me to continue.

_"Do not let either of the Americans get in contact with the… prisoner._

_"For those of you not yet informed, the prisoner is being held in an old house beyond the farm. We will transfer the prisoner to a more secure location in the valley when we are ready. The prisoner is to stay there until further notice. Meanwhile, do not let either of the Americans near the prisoner._

_"We do not know how the American government found out about our village, but we are still investigating._

_"However, I feel that this _um…_ intrusion_?..._ at this particular time is not just a coincidence._

_"I sense a third party, other than the United States government involved here._

_"My fellow men… stay alert…_" I trailed off on the last two words, handed the paper back to Leon, and waited for him to say something.

"How could they already know we're here, and post a warning about us?"

"I don't know… but I wonder if this 'prisoner' is Ashley… Come on."

I followed him out of the shed, up the path, and through some more doors leading to a farm. There was another house, and a barn full of cows.

In a rotted, wooden shack by the entrance there was another typewriter. Beside the shack was something shiny hanging above a well full of dirty water.

"Here, Leon, give me a boost."

Once he locked his fingers together, I stepped in his hand, and he pushed me up. I quickly grabbed the object and stepped down, trying not to fall in the water.

The shiny thing was a pearl pendant and it looked like it was worth a lot, so I pocketed it.

In the little chicken coop thing, hanging in a tree, there was a blue paper. On the paper there was Spanish writing (much sloppier than the writing on the other paper), which Leon asked me to translate.

"_Fifteen blue medallions… Seven in the farm… Eight in the cemetery…_

"_For those of you who shoot ten or more will be awarded."_

"Awarded how?" I looked at Leon.

"No idea."

"Well here, there's a little medallion right here."

Leon aimed his gun up at the medallion and was about to shoot, but I looked at him with pleading eyes and he sighed, handing me the gun.

After I shot the gun with pure joy, Leon said "You know, that's not gonna work every time."

"Then you should get me my own gun."

He scoffed and I looked at him with a straight face. "Y-you're serious?"

"Why not? It would make everything so much easier."

"You're not even legally allowed to own a gun!"

"We're not in the U.S. right now, though, are we?"

He didn't say anything, just took the paper and began walking around the farm.

We ran into a few villagers (or were they farmers?) and Leon killed them. We also found all seven medallions that were in the farm, and he let me shoot all of them. "Consider it target practice" he said. There were two or three that were really high up, and it took a few shots, but I got them.

After we walked through a door, exiting the farm, we stood at the top of a hill. Walking down it, I saw another creepy signpost, and inched closer to Leon. I didn't want that thing anywhere near me.

We took a few more steps and felt shaking. I turned around quickly and saw a giant boulder rolling straight towards us.


	6. Chapter 6

I tried to run, but my legs were frozen in place. I couldn't move. I felt a wave of panic wash over me right as Leon shouted "_Emily!"_

He grabbed my arm and yanked me out of the way right as the rock rolled where I was once standing.

"You okay?" He asked, once the boulder crashed into a wall.

"Yeah…" I stood up and dusted myself off, noticing the huge, bleeding scrape on my knee. "Are you?"

"I'm fine."

We continued walking and came up to the entrance of a tunnel. There was another signpost at it's exit and this time Leon saw me inch closer to him and said, "I know, it's disturbing. But you should stay here while I go have a look around."

I nodded and did as I was told.

There wasn't much I could do but sit and worry while Leon went and fought off more creepy men. Every now and then I would hear explosions and sit in fear wondering if he was okay, but after I heard the echoes of gun shots rumbling through the trees, I was relieved.

A few minutes later, the gunshots stopped and I couldn't hear any remaining villagers. I expected Leon to walk back over to me and tell me it was safe, but when he didn't, I peeked out of my little hiding spot (behind a large rock), and saw Leon walk into a house with his gun out. I guess he wanted to make sure there weren't any men in the house before coming back to get me.

I flushed, thinking it was sweet how protective he was. That was when I heard voices coming from the tunnel. I hid behind my rock and eavesdropped on the conversation.

"_Se fueron de esto manera_."

_They went this way…_ I mentally translated.

"_Bueno… Bueno…"_

_Good… Good…_

Then I saw who was just speaking. There were two creepy men walking beside an _extremely_ tall person. They were heading for the house Leon had just entered.

"Oh no…" I whispered.

Two more bombs went off inside the house and the three men rushed towards it. I quickly followed close behind. They ran inside the house, and I, not wanting to be seen, ran beside it and found a window to look through. Inside the house, I saw Leon talking to a Hispanic man who was sitting on the floor.

_Is that the prisoner…?_ I wondered.

Just then, the three men entered the room and Leon stood up quickly and ran over to the tall man, swinging his leg around to kick him.

I smirked, thinking about how Leon was totally going to kick his ass…

And then the man caught Leon's foot. I made a sharp, gasp sound and my eyes grew wide when I realized what was going to happen next.

In one quick motion, the tall man threw Leon's leg up, causing him to flip in mid-air, and crash into the wardrobe, knocking him and the other man unconscious.

I covered my mouth, trying not to shout '_Leon!_', but a little squeak still managed to escape from my lips.

I watched as they grabbed the two unconscious men, threw them over their shoulder, and left.

_Short chapters are short. Sorry about that. Can't say I didn't warn you. Once again, I hope you're enjoying re-reading this (unless you're new here, then_ HI!_ Have a cookie! O (pretend that's a cookie :] )) and I can't wait to read all of your lovely reviews! See you next time~! ^^_


	7. Chapter 7

_Hey guys! Sorry for such a late update. 'Tis been a busy day! Wow, did I really just say that. Haha, sorry. Been reading Shakespeare and stuff. You understand, right? Riiight! Well, here's chapter 7! Enjoy!_

I didn't know what to do. I was cold, alone, and terrified that someone would come after me. I had been sitting helplessly on the porch of the house for about thirty minutes trying to figure out what to do. It was a stupid move, but I didn't follow the three men that carried Leon out because I didn't want to be seen. I regretted not following them because now I had no idea where Leon was and I was really starting to miss him. I know we had practically just met, but he was the first person I had talked to since my parents were killed.

Oh god… What if they killed him?

I stood up, trying to regain my composure, and wiped the newly formed tears from my cheeks. I couldn't bare another person that I cared about being killed. I had made up my mind to go look for Leon and make _sure_ he wasn't killed.

After about twenty minutes of nothing but walking, I had finally made it back to the village with, surprisingly, no interruptions. There were two doors that I could've gone through: one of them was the door that all of the villagers disappeared to after the bell had rung, and the other was behind the little coop that they kept a few cows in. Since I really didn't want to deal with any crazy people at the moment, I decided to take door two.

I walked up the little path that led to the doors and something caught my eye: a jacket. Leon's jacket to be specific. I picked it up and examined it: it was dusty, from being on the ground, and it was big, probably too big for me.

I smiled thinking about how sweet it was when he offered me his jacket, but I turned it down. As if on cue, the wind blew harshly, giving me the chills. I quickly put on Leon's jacket over my own; it actually wasn't as big as I thought it would be, and it was really soft. I pulled it tighter around me as the wind blew again, and walked through the doors in front of me.

They led to another path that went uphill and to the right, leading to a two story house. I walked up the path and there was a shed, but I passed it since I didn't have a knife to break the boxes that were in it.

I opened the back door to the house and walked in. There was a typewriter on a table by the fireplace and a set dinner table for eight. After walking up the stairs and into the bedroom, I screamed when I saw a masked man standing by the bed.

"W-who are you?"

"The name's Merchant." He said.

"So… you're a merchant?"

"Eh heh heh…" He chuckled. "Yep. That's me. Good ol' merchant. I'll sell ya' anything ya' like." He then opened his coat and showed me various weapons, which I gaped at. I had never seen this many firearms in my life. "How much do ya' got?"

"Excuse me?" I looked back up at him.

"How much money do ya' got?"

"Oh… uh… I don't have any money… but," I said remembering the pendant. "I have this." I pulled out said pendant and he took it from me, examining it in his hands,

"Ah… I'll buy it at a high price…"

"How much?" I asked.

"Ten thousand."

If I had a drink, I would have done a spit-take. "T-ten th-thousand?"

"Yep. But you gotta remember, stranga, this ain't America. Ten thousand here is about five hundred for you."

"True…"

He handed me the ten thousand pesetas and opened his coat again. "What are ya' buyin'?"

I saw a handgun that looked very similar to Leon's and asked the man how much it was.

"Eight thousand."

"That's a bit pricey…"

"Do ya' want the gun or not?"

"Alright, alright."

I handed him the eight thousand pesetas and cursed when I realized I had nowhere to put the gun.

"Do you have some sort of holster or something?"

"You're in luck, stranga… I happen to have one right 'ere."

He pulled out a thigh holster and a belt that had slots made for holding grenades and ammo and such.

"What's the belt for?" I asked him.

"For ya' ammo. I noticed ya' had small pockets."

"Oh… well thanks but I don't think I have enough…"

"Consider it a friendly discount, for a lady such as yourself." He said all creepy like.

I put the holster on my right thigh and the belt around my waist, doing a little happy dance in my head about how awesome I looked.

"Thanks, Mister." I said, giving him the rest of my pesetas.

"Come back anytime…" He said.

I smiled at him and walked through the door we were standing by and exited the house. Standing outside, I could see there was a dead end.

"_Shit…_" I said silently to myself.

I walked down the path a little ways, to get to the shed at the end of it, and saw there was another tripwire bomb. I stopped and shot the bomb like Leon did, killing three birds that were on the ground. Oh well.

In the shed there was a box on a table. In the thigh holster beside the gun's spot there was a pocket knife. I smiled, mentally thanking the Merchant. I slashed open the box and found a box of handgun ammo that had twenty five bullets in it. I put the box in one of the slots on my belt and exited the shed. Beside the shed there was a well with a wooden cover being propped open above it with something shiny hanging above it. I threw a rock at the wooden block holding the lid to the well up, and stepped on the lid, grabbing the shiny thing. Unlike the other shiny thing I got earlier with Leon, this shiny thing was a brass pocket watch, but it still looked like it was worth a lot, so I put it in my pocket.

I turned around and saw another well, but this one didn't have a roof over it, and it didn't have any water in it. In fact, it had a ladder going so far down I couldn't see. Sighing, I began climbing down. It was the only way to go.


	8. Chapter 8

When I stepped off the ladder, I was greeted by an "_Un forastero!_"

"Oh great…" I said, sarcastically.

I turned around and aimed my new gun at the man who was now coming at me with a pitchfork. I tried to pull the trigger, but I couldn't. My heart was pounding. I had never shot anyone before. If I killed him, would it be considered murder or self-defense? Oh god… he was only about three feet away from me. I took a deep breath, and held it. He was one of the things that killed my parents, if Leon could kill them, I could too.

_Bang! Bang!_

I shot the man twice, and he fell over the railing, falling into a lower section of whatever this place was. A few more deep breaths later, I continued walking.

I walked through a little hallway, and through a door, entering a room that seemed as though it was recently flooded. Sloshing around in the water, I knifed open barrels along the way, finding pesetas and ammo hidden in them. The same thing was in the next room, although this one wasn't flooded.

There wasn't another door in this room, just a lot of bear traps, which I over-cautiously avoided, remembering what happened to my leg a few hours ago. Because there were no doors, I broke one of the two windows in the room and climbed out of it. I walked around a broken wall, which, when you think about it, seems impossible, and out of two big red doors.

I was so tempted to sit down in the dirt and never get up. It felt so nice under the cloudy sky, in Leon's over-sized jacket. But I had to keep going. I had to find Leon. I had to make sure that he was okay, that he wasn't dead. I continued walking and came up to two doors bigger than I've ever seen. They were blue, and had little handles on them, standing at around ten and a half feet tall. I grabbed one of the handles and pulled; they were heavier than I thought.

"Holy…"

This place was big. No, not even big, more like _enormous_. It was right over a big, black, never-ending pit-of-doom. There were a few house/shed-type-things and there was a giant bridge going through the middle of it all. I walked around the little house I was standing beside, and over to the bridge.

It was big, and creepy, but it other than the fact that most of the wood was almost completely rotted, it seemed pretty sturdy. (Please note the sarcasm in the last sentence). I carefully walked across it, taking soft footsteps, holding on to the rope the whole time, and not daring to look down.

Finally, I was off the bridge. I turned right and walked down the little steps, straight, right, up more steps, and through more big doors. As soon as I opened the door, I saw a man enter the house in front of me. Pulling out my gun, I followed him, ready to shoot if he was one of those creepy men. I had about had it with those guys.

As soon as I opened the door, I heard him say "_Te voy a matar…"_

"_I'm going to kill you…_" I mentally translated.

"Kill? Who's he going to kill?" I whispered to myself.

That was when I heard someone shout, "Do something, cop!" And then, "After you!" A familiar voice said.

_Leon?_

I quickly ran around the corner and saw a bloody man walking towards Leon and the Hispanic man he was with earlier with an axe. Without thinking about it, I raised my gun, and shot the man in the head, pointblank, sending blood and mush flying everywhere.

When the man dropped dead, Leon looked at me and said, "Emily?"

"Leon!"

I ran over to him and hugged him tightly.

"I was so worried! I thought they killed you!" I let go and looked at him. He had a puzzled look on his face. "What?" I asked.

"Nothing…" He said, looking away. "Uh, go get that axe over there."

I nodded and walked over to the axe, picking it up.

"Now, when we lean forward, I want you to break these cuffs."

"But what if I hit you?" I asked.

"Well… let's just hope you don't."

I nodded again, about to do what he said, when the other man said, "Now wait a minute, I don't want to get my hands cut off by some little girl!"

"I am not little, I'm seventeen!" I protested.

"Well, _excuse me_ fo-"

"That's enough!" Leon interrupted, making me flinch. "Emily, just hurry up and do it."

I picked up the axe, and Leon and the Hispanic man both leaned forward. After taking a deep breath, I swung the axe down as hard as I could and broke the cuffs, freeing the two men. Leon stood up and I smiled at him. He eyed my belt and thigh holster.

"Where on Earth did you get those?" He asked.

"I bought them from some dude. You like?" I asked turning to the side so he could see the holster better.

He paused and after a while he smirked and said, "I like the jacket."

I blushed and said, "Oh… yeah. I found it back in the village. You can have it back if you want."

"No, no. You keep it. It looks good on you."

I blushed again, and tried changing the subject. "So, who was that guy?"

"Oh, he's-" Leon turned around, as if to introduce us, but stopped once he saw the man was gone.

"Shit… hold on." He said to me as he pulled out his communicator.

"It's Leon. Sorry I couldn't get in touch sooner, I was… a bit tied up."

"But you're okay, right?" Hunnigan asked.

"I'm fine. There was a male civilian held captive. According to him, Ashley's in a church somewhere."

"What happened to him?"

"He managed to escape."

"Do you have a fix on the location of that church?"

"No, but apparently there's a secret passage in the village that leads there. I'm heading back to the village." He said, and hung up.

"Do you even know how to get back to the village?" I asked him.

"No, I thought you did." He looked at me, almost looking panic-stricken.

I laughed. "Yes, I do. I was just wondering why you told Hunnigan you were going back to the village, if you don't even know how."

"Well, I was kind of hoping you could take me there."

I laughed again, and smiled at him. "Okay, come on it's this way."

As we were walking out of the house, a familiar voice said "Over here… Stranga…"

"Ooo! Leon! It's the merchant!" I excitedly said to Leon.

"The who…?" He asked.

"The merchant! He's the one who sold me this stuff." I showed him my belt, gun, and thigh holster again. "I know _you_ have some stuff to sell, maybe you can buy something sweet. How much money do you have?" I asked him.

"Uh… Somewhere around thirty-six thousand. Why?"

I smiled. "Perfect, come on."

Leon followed me out of the house and around to the merchant.

"Ello, Merchant." I said in a random, British accent, getting a strange look from Leon.

The merchant chuckled. "Got somethin' that might interest ya'…" He opened his coat and showed Leon all of his weapons. After Leon sold all of his jewels and such, plus my brass pocket watch, he had around sixty thousand pesetas.

"Oh, and, don't know if ya' noticed, stranga, but did you see the blue medallions hangin' around in the village? Come back after you've shot ten or more of 'em. I've got a specialized gun I want ya' to try out."

"Oh so _that's_ what they're for…" I said aloud.

I waited as Leon bought various things from the merchant, and talked to him about "selling a gun to a minor", whatever that was about.

Once Leon walked back over to me, he showed me his new guns and then we began walking back to the village.

_Hope you liked those two chapters! Sorry if anything sounded weird, or too similar to the original version, it's been a long day. And frankly, I just didn't feel like re-reading them over and editing __**again.**__ I hope you understand. Well, take care. I'll see you tomorrow! :]_


	9. Chapter 9

_Aaaand... chapter 9. I'm sooo sorry for not updating sooner! I've just been super busy with STAAR tests and yadayadayada... you get it. But the good news is that I'll be updating up to chapter 15 today to make up for my absence! Yay! Now without further ado... the long awaited chapter 9.. Enjoy!_

Leon and I were almost back to the village, but not yet. Right now we were walking through the house I had met the merchant in. The agent held up his hand, silently telling me to wait, while he checked the hallways. I nodded and he began pushing the door open as slowly as possible.

"Jeez, you take ten years to open a freaking door." I said, annoyed.

He rolled his eyes and pushed the door open a little more and stopped. There were voices coming from downstairs. He carefully stepped out into the hall when someone violently grabbed him by the neck, and held him in the air, chocking him. I watched in horror as the man I recognized as the tall man from before chocked Leon until he was kicking and turning blue from lack of oxygen.

I couldn't take it anymore; I shoved the door open and kicked the guy in the shin, doing no damage what-so-ever. At least it got him to look at me.

"Stop!" I screamed. "Please, don't hurt him!"

Everyone was silent, except for Leon, who was making gagging sounds. Then, the big man threw Leon down on the ground, brought his hand up, and slapped me. Hard. The sound was loud, and I fell back onto the floor from the force of it. Leon's eyes grew wide with shock and hatred for the man as I clutched my cheek in pain. The man smirked at me and turned to Leon.

"You carry the same blood as us, it seems. Never the less, you're an outsider. Just remember, if you become unpleasant to our eyes, you'll _both_ face severe consequences." He then turned around, and entered the bedroom.

As soon as he left, Leon quickly stood up and rushed over to me.

"Are you alright? Does it hurt?" He asked. "Let me see."

I turned my face to the side, letting Leon get a better look at my now swollen cheek.

"Yeah… it looks pretty bad. There's definitely going to be a bruise. Here…" He pulled out a can of First Aid Spray, and was about to spray it when I placed my hand over his and stopped him.

"No. You can't keep wasting all of that stuff on me, I'm fine, really."

He looked at the red hand print on my cheek, and then at my eyes. I held his gaze, letting him know I was serious, until he put the can away.

"Wait here." He commanded and stood up.

I copied him. "Why? What are you doing?" I inquired worriedly, but I had an idea of his intentions.

"Just stay here."

Not even a second had gone by before I heard struggling, and a gunshot. I sat down, not wanting to go in there, not wanting to be any more of a bother to Leon, but not wanting him to get hurt either. All of the sudden, two steady gunshots went off, and there was a loud crashing sound. I quickly stood up and ran into the room to find Leon gazing intently out the broken window as if he were in another world.

I approached him carefully, not wanting to startle him. "A-are you okay?"

He turned around looking confused at first, but then assuring and said, "Yeah, I'm fine. Let's go."

Then, Leon's walkie-talkie went off again.

"Leon, I've been able to get some now info that might help you." Hunnigan stated.

"Fill me in."

"Apparently there's a religious cult group involved. They're called the _Los Illuminados_."

"Los Illuminados? That's a mouthful…"

"It means _The Illuminati_." I explained.

The man thought for a second before continuing. "Anyway… we had an unexpected run in with the 'big-cheese' of this village, Bitores Mendez."

"But you're okay, right?" She asked.

"Yeah… but he could've killed me, but he let me live… And he mentioned something about me carrying the same blood as them. Whatever that means."

"'Carry the same blood'… Hmm… Interesting…"

"Anyway, there are more important things than solving riddles right now." Leon stated.

"You're right. Hurry and find that church, Leon."

While Leon was talking to Hunnigan, I was snooping around the room. I found a key that had some kind of bug-looking thing on the top of it, like the door back in the village.

When Leon hung up, I turned to him and said, "Hey Leon, look at what I found."

He took the key from my hands and examined it. "Hmm… Maybe this opens the door back in the village…"

"Yeah, that's what I was thinking."

He looked back up at me and then said, "Come on, let's go."

We walked out of the bedroom and down the stairs. There was a painting on the wall of a church, and Leon said something about Ashley. Who was this chick? Was she his girlfriend or something? Not that it mattered to me who he was dating…

In the kitchen, there was an egg in the oven. An _egg_ in the _oven_. What the hell is wrong with these people? It wasn't even cracked or anything, it was just _sitting_ there!

After searching through the rest of the house, and taking whatever we needed, we walked through the back door and were greeted by the sounds of a chainsaw.

Acting on impulse, we both shot volleys of bullets into the guy's chest, because, somehow, the paper bag was protecting his head. Yeah, I know right? Eventually we shot the guys legs, making him fall to the ground. Once he was dead, Leon and I continued down the beaten path, shooting who ever got in our way, until we came upon the door that led back to the village.

"Well, this is it…" I said quietly.

He nodded and opened the door.

There were a few more people in the village, but not many. We took them all down easily. Once the village was cleared, we walked up to the door with the huge, red, bug-looking thing on it. Leon took out the key we found and put it in the lock, and the door opened.

This room was medium sized and had a nice looking table, and a chandelier above it in the far, right corner. I wondered what they used it for…

The neighboring room was used as some sort of storage. There was a single red lantern hanging on the ceiling, and a trap door in the back.

Just as we began walking, the lantern fell and flames went everywhere.


	10. Chapter 10

_Here ya go! As promised. Chapter 11 is on it's way ~_

"Woah… careful." Leon whispered after we both took a few startled steps back.

I simply nodded and we walked to the back of the room where the trap door was, and knelt down beside it. Leon lifted up the door and I turned to him as he turned to me. It was too dark to see anything, but I felt his breath on my face. Our faces were _so_ close. All I had to do was lean in just a little more…

I felt my face heat up and I quickly turned away. It would be stupid to kiss him, right? I mean, he was _way_ older than me. It didn't matter how big his muscles were, or how blue his eyes were, or even how his smile could cure a blind person. Okay, maybe I was exaggerating a bit there, but come on; you had to admit this man was gorgeous.

"Uh… I'll go first…" I stammered, trying to break the awkward silence, and jumped through the door when I saw Leon nod.

A few seconds later, the agent cautiously followed.

I snickered at his carefulness and he rolled his eyes.

"You know, you shouldn't just jump down like that, you could get hurt."

"Whatever you say, sir," I replied with a smirk. "After you."

We began walking down the tunnel, and I couldn't help but feel a little freaked out. The steps were steep, and the walls were _slimy_.

"This tunnel could use some creepy background music…" I whispered.

Leon chuckled. "Yeah, like the Jaws theme song or something."

"No, no. Jaws music is specifically assigned to scary water creature things. Not creepy tunnels."

"Okay, then what would be good for creepy tunnels?"

"Hmm… The thing from _Friday the 13__th_?"

"Yeah, that is pretty creepy…"

Before I knew it, we were at the end of the tunnel, and the merchant was there again. Leon got upgrades on all of his guns. Once that was finished, we paid and thanked the masked man and walked through the door we were standing by. It opened to another part of the tunnel, and once we were safely behind it I turned to Leon and whispered, "That guy creeps me out…"

He chuckled and we kept walking. "Why do you say that?"

"I don't know… It's like he _follows_ us everywhere."

"I thought you said you like him?" The agent inquired.

"Yeah well…"I left the sentence unfinished.

We climbed up another ladder, this one was _long_. It took about a whole minute just to get up. When we eventually did make it to the above grpund, there was a path that was surrounded by, you guessed it, trees! The path continued through a graveyard, up a hill, through a giant gate, and up to the church. Leon went ahead, to check the place out while I followed behind at a distance.

As soon as we stepped into the graveyard, someone shouted _Alli esta!_ Leon took down the guy with the axe, and I took down the lady with the kitchen knife. When that was done, and after we shot the rest of the blue medallions hanging around, we walked up to the door of the church, only to find that it was locked.

"Shit!" Leon said as he pulled out his walkie-talkie.

"You like that word, don't you?" I asked with a smile.

Rolling his eyes, he began talking to Hunnigan. "Hunnigan, its Leon. The door's locked, I can't get in."

"Didn't they teach you how to pick locks at the academy?" She joked.

The blonde man scoffed. "There's some sort of indentation, like something might fit inside."

"Well, there's no use of standing around. Leon, you have to find some way, or some_thing_ to get inside."

They hung up and we stood there on the porch of the church. Leon looked as if he was thinking hard about something.

"What are we going to do now?" I inquired, looking up at him. I hadn't realized before then just how much taller he was than me; it had to be at least five or six inches.

"I saw another trail over there," he answered, pointing to the left. "Come on."

The trail led to a bridge out of planks, kind of like the one above the trench. The problem was there were _huge_ gaps in this one. Leon could jump them easily, but I had short legs…

"Just jump across, and I'll catch you!" Leon shouted from across the gap.

"W-what if you don't? What if I fall in the water and drown?" I never knew I had a fear of heights until that moment. I had even ridden on a plane, and I was just fine, but this…

In a calmer tone, he said, "Emily, I promise I'll catch you."

"You shouldn't promise things like that."

"Then if you fall, I'll jump in the water and save you. Just trust me."

I thought about what he said. If I did fall, and he jumped in after me, there was a ninety-percent chance he would land on top of me. But I decided to just man up, and jump.

"But wait, won't this jacket get in the way?" I asked.

He thought for a moment before saying, "I can't guarantee anything, but if it makes you feel better, you can take it off and just put it right there." He pointed to a spot beside me on the platform.

"And just leave it here? But it looks kind of expensive… I don't know..."

He shrugged. "It's getting old anyway… Now, are you going to jump or not?"

I took off his jacket, folded it, and set it beside me, then hung my jacket on a rail. Shivering at how cold it was without them, I took a deep breath, readied myself, and jumped.

There was that split, horrifying second or two when both my feet were in the air, and I thought I would just fall, right there, but I didn't. Leon kept his promise and he carefully, but firmly, put his hands on either sides of my waist, and set me down gently.

He must have thought I was insane, because I was blushing like mad.

"Are you alright?" He asked.

I nodded. "Thank you."

"Don't worry about it."


	11. Chapter 11

We entered the shed that was to our left. There was another note, which was written in Spanish, so I translated it.

"_Closer of the Church._" I began.

"_Regarding the three fugitives, the… apprehension… of Luis is our top priority: The American agent and the girl, and distant second._

"_What Luis stole from us is far more important than the-_ Wait. Ashley's the president's daughter?" I asked, astonished.

"Yeah, why?"

"So she's _not_ your girlfriend…?"

"What? No! Why?"

"Oh, n-no reason… j-just wondering…"

He gave me an odd look and I kept reading.

"Uh… _Unless we get it back, she will become useless to us. We must get it back to execute our plan to the end._

"_If it gets in the wrong hands, the world would become a totally different place than what Lord Saddler had envisioned. At all costs, we must not let that happen._

"_Nevertheless, we're not letting go of the girl. To ensure that the agent doesn't get to her, I have locked the church door where the girl is being held._

"_Anyone who needs access to the church must first get approved by Lord Saddler._

"_There is a key beyond the lake, but it should be safe now that the 'Del Lago' _, comes from the lake, belongs to the lake, something like that… _has been awakened by our Lord. No one will get across the lake alive._

"_Plus, our same blood courses through the agent's veins, and we are working on getting Las Plagas into the girl. It'll be just a matter of time before they join us. Once they do, there will be nobody else left that will come looking for the girl…_ Leon, what are they going to put in me…?"

"Nothing. I won't let them do anything to you. Now come on. Once we get Ashley, we can all go home, and forget about this whole mess."

I nodded and we kept walking. There was another gap, and when he grabbed my waist, I didn't blush. I was too busy thinking about what he had said: _"We can all go home_..."But the thing was, I didn't have a home. My parents were both killed; I had no one else left. And I didn't turn eighteen for ten more months; I wasn't even legally allowed to live alone.

Leon must have noticed the tears forming in my eyes because he said, "Hey, look." We stopped walking in front of the door we had to go through and he made me look him in the eyes.

"I _promise_ I won't let anything happen to you, okay? And if something does, I'll let you hit me. Right here in the face."

I smiled and wiped at my eyes, looking at the ground. I felt my face heat up when I looked back up to find him staring at me.

"There we go," He said with a smirk, making me blush even more. Damn you, cheeks! Why do you have to get red _every time_ he looks at you? What made it worse was now he _knew_ it happened!

When we walked through the door, there was a big, empty area with birds everywhere. We walked past a few shacks, seeing that they were empty, and walked down a few steps and through a green door. There were more stairs, and then a ladder, which we jumped down from, and then I immediately saw a blue light.

"Ooo! Merchant!"

I ran up and greeted the merchant, Leon following slowly behind.

"So, Stranga, I see you've shot all fifteen medallions. As promised, here's your specialized gun. Don't worry about money, this one's on the house."

He gently set the gun in my eagerly awaiting, outstretched hands. I turned around quickly to show Leon my new gun.

"Isn't it awesome?" I turned to him with excitement.

"I'll take that…" He snatched the weapon from my hand.

"Hey, wait a minute! I was the one who shot all of the blue thingies!"

"Yes, but you're still new at this kind of thing," he said while selling his handgun and putting the Punisher in its place.

"But I thought you said I had really good aim…?"

This made him laugh. "That's true, but playing video games doesn't make you experienced hun, practice with _real guns_ does."

I honestly didn't know what to say to that, so I figured my red cheeks could do the talking for me.

We used the other door this time, and robbed the shed that was there. Right past it there was another creepy signpost.

"Heads up…" I warned, and we slowly walked forward.

Yep, I was right. We heard a loud rumbling and merely side-stepped the boulder that came rolling down.

"Losers…" I said, making Leon laugh.

When we got to the end of the hill, we were standing in front of the dock to a small lake. There were a lot of creepy men in this area, but most of the time they were stupid enough to blow themselves up in the tripwire bombs, so we didn't use much ammo. We _did_, however, have to walk in the water, which didn't help the fact that my shoes were completely ruined.

We walked up a ramp, and across the bridge, onto dry land. There was another hill, but no sign, so there weren't going to be any boulders this time.

At the top of the hill there was a door that led to two different directions. We could go right, which led to another shed and a dock with a boat, or we could go straight, which was just a cliff looking out onto the lake. Leon and I took the straight path first. When we got to the top, we heard a boat. Crouched down behind some brush, Leon pulled out his binoculars. It looked like the two men in the boat dumped something into the water and Leon said, "Shit…"

"What is it?" I asked.

"One of the police officers." He looked back into the binoculars.

Once the men drove away, there was a loud roar and I snapped my head up just in time to see what it was: Del Lago. He was big, at least fifty feet long. He was a dirty green color, like the color of the lake, and his mouth was huge with razor sharp teeth that looked like they could shred you to pieces.

"Okay, now would be a good moment for the Jaws theme song…"

I turned around and noticed the agent was walking away.

"Wait, Leon! What are you doing? How are we going to get across the lake with that thing…?"

"I'll kill it."


	12. Chapter 12

"What? How do you plan on doing that?" I hurriedly followed him.

We turned left. "I don't know. I'll figure something out."

We were almost at the dock. "And what if you die? What am I going to do then? What about Ashley?"

He stopped at the dock and turned to me. "Do you think you could having a little faith in me? I won't die, I promise."

"Don't make a promise you can't keep…" I said quietly, looking at the ground. My eyes were getting watery, and I tried my best not to cry.

He sighed. "Look, Em, I-"

"No!" I interrupted. "You don't understand! Both of my parents are dead! They were killed by th-those _things!_ Right in front of me! You're the only thing I have right now… I can't lose you too…" The demanding salt water finally won, and tears began pouring from my eyes. I weakly wiped at my cheek and looked back up at him. "But i-if you want to go and get yourself killed, that's your decision. I obviously don't mean anything to you. I'm just a stray dog that followed you home."

"No. It's not like that…" He said quietly.

"Then what _is_ it like, huh?" I awaited an answer, but he never gave me one.

"I'll be back soon." Then he turned around and got in the boat.

I sat there on the wooden dock and watched as my savior, if you could call him that, drove across the lake. I wiped my tears away. I hated this, hated crying. I wanted to be tough, _needed_ to be tough if I wanted to make it out of here alive. Leon would eventually get tired of me if all I did was whine.

I stood up and looked out onto the lake. There was Leon in the little boat, and… something else. I squinted and looked closer to see the giant, green fish swimming just beneath his boat.

"_Leon!_ Look out!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, praying he could hear me.

He looked back at me, and then glanced all around him fully alert. Then, all of the sudden, Del Lago jumped up out of the water right in front of him, making the boat rock back and forth until the water grew more still. Suddenly, the boat sped forward as if it had a mind of its own. That was when I realized that the hook that was attached to the boat by a rope had caught onto Del Lagos back, and was now towing Leon around in the water.

My heart raced as I watched Leon fight the lake monster, stabbing it with the harpoons that were conveniently placed in the boat. Sometimes, he would fall into the water and I would watch in fear as he desperately swam back. Other times, Del Lago would disappear from sight, and I had to tell Leon where he was before he popped back out and knocked him out of the boat again.

Then, one last time, I shouted, "Behind you!"

The blonde man quickly turned around and chucked a harpoon straight into its open mouth. The monster cried out in pain and sunk deep into the water. Then, as if we hadn't had enough already, the rope from the hook wrapped around Leon's leg and he was forced to cut himself loose, or be pulled down into the depths of the murky loch.

Once that was over, he slowly drove back over to me. After he stepped out of the boat and onto the dock, I greeted him with a massive hug.

"I'm so glad you're alright…" I whispered once I let go.

" I told you so." He grinned at me and my face turned red. Again.

"So where do we go next?" I asked, looking out at the lake.

"I saw another dock on the other side, so I guess we can go there." I nodded and we climbed into the boat. When we got to the other dock, we both stepped out and began walking towards a house that was there. All of the sudden, Leon made a loud grunting sound, and doubled over in pain, clutching his chest.

"A-are you okay?" I asked, my voice heavy with concern.

"Yeah… I-I'm fine. I just- Ahh!" He screamed our and fell to his knees.

"Leon!"

I helped him back up to his feet and we stumbled into the vacant house. As soon as we were in, Leon began coughing. A lot. He pulled back and looked at his hand: there was blood. About two seconds later, he fell to the floor.

"Leon!" I screamed again.

I ran up to him and felt his pulse: he was still alive. I sighed in relief, but I didn't know what else to do; he would have to wake up sometime, right?

I looked around the room: There was a table, some shelves, and a bed.

_A bed…_

It hadn't occurred to me just how tired I was until then. I walked over to Leon, and looked at his face. Despite the way he passed out, he looked… peaceful. I looked back over to the bed and thought that maybe sleep wasn't such a bad idea. Leon would have to wake up eventually, and when he did we could continue the mission. I took off the sheet and turned it inside out, so it wouldn't be as dirty, and then walked back over to the unconscious blonde man on the floor and gently put the pillow under his head.

Once I was sure he wouldn't awaken for hours, I took off my blue over-shirt and used it as a pillow. I then laid down on the bed, and before I knew it, drifted off to sleep.


	13. Chapter 13

When I awoke it was dark outside. I could hear the rain hitting the roof on the house I was in, and the thunder booming in the sky. I could barely make out the shapes in the room, but it was enough to tell what my surroundings were. I crawled over to the end of the bed and looked at the floor where Leon had passed out. He wasn't there.

"L-Leon…?" I called out, feeling panic slowly wash over me.

"Hey, relax." A man said. "I'm right here."

I felt a warm hand gently place itself on my shoulder and I knew immediately that it was Leon. When I turned around, I could make out his face in the shadows from the torches outside. He looked pretty healthy, despite the fact that his hair was caked in blood, but mine probably was too, so I pushed that aside.

"Are you okay?" I asked, remembering how much blood he had coughed up earlier.

"Never better." He said assuringly, but I could hear the worry in his voice.

I gave him a sympathetic look and decided to change the subject. "So how long have you been awake?"

"About two hours. I saw you sleeping and just decided to leave you be. We've had a pretty rough day."

"Oh, thanks." I said casually, even though I was melting on the inside.

He grinned at me. Obviously I wasn't as good an actress and I'd thought. I stood up and began walking to the door.

"What about your shirt?" Leon asked, pointing to the blue tank top I had used as a pillow.

I shrugged. "It's probably ruined now; that bed was filthy."

We exited the house, with me now only wearing black clothing, and my make up completely smeared. I wiped the underneath of my eyes.

We continued walking, turning to the right and walking on wet, soggy mud that made squishy noises as we got drenched in the rain. There was another door (what did you expect?) and there were a few random tiki torches that lit up the way. On the other side of the big, heavy, annoying, I'm-getting-sick-of-all-these-creepy-doors door, we heard rushing water.

"Hey Leon, didn't that paper say that the key to the church is behind a waterfall?"

"I think so…"

We kept walking up the path that was surrounded by a rock wall, which, to me, kind of looked like it was bowl shaped, when one of the creepy men began walking towards us. But something about him seemed… odd…

Then, his head began twitching. I went to pull out my gun when Leon stopped me. We carefully watched the man as he walked towards us. All of the sudden his head _exploded _and out came what must have been that _Las Plagas_ thing that was mentioned in the note. It was red, slimy, and kind of reminded me of a squid. It had an eye on the left side of its face (if you could even call it a face), and tentacles that slashed around viciously trying to slice you with its claws. The thing was beyond anthropic.

I didn't care what Leon said; I pulled out my gun and began shooting bullets into the thing, one after the other with Leon's help. Thirteen bullets later, it still hadn't died. We both continued to shoot volleys of bullets into the thing, until it made a loud, ear-shattering screech, and disintegrated.

"What the hell was that thing?" I asked Leon, breathlessly.

"I don't know… But I don't like it…"

Was that thing going to be in me? Leon promised he wouldn't let them do anything, but just in case, I don't think slapping him would make it better.

We continued walking up the path and the roaring sound got louder, up a few steps there were planks that you had to jump across to get to the other side of the river. Of course, Leon had to catch me, and every time my cheeks would flare red. I was hoping he hadn't noticed, but with my luck he probably did. On the other side of the river it was a dead end, or so we thought.

"Hey Leon, there's a rope here!" I pointed to said rope that was tied to a part of the rocks. "I think we have to climb down it."

Leon walked to where I was standing and observed the rope. "This thing will never hold both of us at the same time." He finally said after minutes of examining the strength and length of it.

"Then what do we do?"

He thought for a second. "Here, I'll go down first and check out the area. If more of those things show up while I'm gone, shoot them." He tossed me a full box of handgun ammo.

I nodded and he began descending down the cliff. Nobody ever did come, so the extra ammo was useless. When it was my turn, I tightly clutched the rope and slid down, kicking off the wall every so often. As soon as I got to the ground I felt the sting on my fingers from rope burn.

"Don't worry," Leon said. "I have it too." He showed me his fingers: they were bright red and had scratches and scrapes on them.

I clenched my fists. It hurt. I had never had rope burn before, but I figured that was the least of my problems at the moment, so I tried not to worry about the pain.

To our right were big, heavy gears that squeaked and hurt my ears. We walked forward and were forced to turn right, but part of the bridge across the river was missing. It wasn't like before where the gaps were small enough to simple jump across (Well, for Leon anyway…), these gaps were _at least_ twice as big. If you fell in, you'd be washed away by the running water.

"What's the box for?" I asked, pointing to a wooden container that was being held up by chains above the river. Wait… maybe if we broke the chains somehow, the box would fall and be stopped by a board placed on the railing beside us and we could jump across?

I voiced my thoughts and Leon shot the box down. My plan worked perfectly and we jumped across. The gap wasn't as big as the others, so I jumped myself. The waterfall was big, and _loud_. We had to shout so we could hear each other.

"How do we get past there?" I shouted over the noise.

"I don't know, but there's got to be a switch or something to shut the water off! I mean, what else could those gears be for?" He shouted back.

There was another gap and this time we had to shoot down two boxes. We jumped across them and then he climbed up a ladder and pulled a lever, shutting off the waterfall.

"Well that was easy." I said to Leon once he jumped back down. He smiled, giving me the butterflies. I didn't want to think about why, so I thought about something else; cake seemed to work.

We walked back to where the waterfall once was. As soon as we jumped across the second box and onto the bridge, a numerous amount of infected villagers began emerging from the tunnel that was once hidden behind the waterfall, and from the path Leon and I had come from. We quickly turned around and jumped back over the boxes, since there was nobody over there. We pulled out our guns and shot the men as they were jumping from box to box, making them fall in the water. Once everyone was defeated, we entered the tunnel that was once hidden behind the waterfall, and I took a serious note to get new shoes when I got back home.

_Home…_

"I think this is the key." Leon said, snapping me out of my thoughts.

We had reached the back of the cave and it was formed to look something like a small room. It had at least fifty candles lined along the side walls, and in the back, was some sort of circular stone that was mounted on the wall. Leon removed the stone from its spot, and said wall rose up into the ceiling, revealing a hidden part of the tunnel.


	14. Chapter 14

The agent quickly took out his communicator and called Hunnigan.

"I've obtained an object that resembles the cult group's insignia."

"Good work, Leon. Head back to the church. Ashley's safety is our immediate priority. Oh, and also, I haven't been able to find much information on Emily or her parents."

_My parents…_

"There was a power outage somewhere in the city and half of our researching database is down." She continued.

"So what do you want me to do about it?" Leon asked.

"Let me talk to her. I need to ask a few questions."

"No." I said quietly, closing my eyes. I didn't want to think about them.

"Hold on." Leon said to Hunnigan. It seemed only he had heard me. "Let me talk to her about it first, then I'll get back to you."

"Alright. Try to hurry."

He hung up and walked closer to me, putting a hand on my shoulder. "Hey, Em… You alright?"

I opened my eyes and nodded, looking anywhere but at him. "Um… Kind of?" I couldn't stop my voice from shaking.

He looked at me with obvious concern. "You sure? You know you can tell me anything, it's not like I'm going anywhere."

"It's just… I can't do it. Not yet. It's still too soon…" My voice drifted as the salty tears dripped down my face.

"Hey… it's alright. Listen, you don't have to talk about it yet, but Hunnigan is going to need something so that she knows where to send you when we get out of here."

I simply nodded when the thought of me staying at his place entered my mind. I didn't know why, and honestly, I didn't care at the moment. All I knew was that there was a very kind man standing in front of me and he needed me to be strong so that we could rescue the president's daughter and send her back to her father so Leon could get paid and we could all go home and—

Yet another wave of pain.

"Can we just go now?"

"Yeah," he said and we began walking through the newly exposed tunnel.

We ended up standing on a dock, and there was another boat there, along with about a dozen annoying bats.

Ignoring my urge to shoot every one of them, we got in the boat and Leon quickly began driving away. Before we knew it, we were standing on another dock, this one was very familiar. Then I saw the blue torch flame.

"You wanna stop at the merchant?" Leon asked, nodding towards the direction of the masked man. "Maybe it'll cheer you up."

"N-no, I'm good. Thanks, though." I replied with a weak smile.

"Alright," he replied. "Come on, let's go get Ashley."

I nodded and we kept moving, my thoughts on the president's daughter. What was she like? She _was_ the president's daughter, so was she a rich, spoiled, snob? Or was she just like any other person? Leon seemed so focused on her, and _only_ her sometimes. I wondered if they had some sort of history. I shook my head. He said that she wasn't his girlfriend. Wait, why was I worrying about that anyway? It's not like I cared who he was dating. He was just a guy who had saved my life… multiple times. It was just a coincidence that he was really nice, cared about me, was super-hot, and had really big muscles. It wasn't like we were soul mates or anything. Pshh… yeah. That'd be crazy.

Without a second thought, we walked through the gate, and into the big, empty area where dozens of birds once were.

Suddenly, the doors to the gate began slamming shut, and before I could think about it, Leon pushed me back out, leaving me standing helplessly on the other side.

"Leon! What was that for?" I yelled through the wooden bars.

"I have a bad feeling about this…" He said mysteriously.

As if on cue, two _huge_ doors that were camouflaged to match the stone wall opened and out came eight men grunting and tugging on a thick rope.

And then we saw it. The giant. He was huge, a nasty green-gray color, and he was wearing shorts. I would hate to be the person to get those on him…

I guess being pulled on by eight men angered him, because he brought his fist up and punched the nearest man across the arena and into the wall, killing him instantly. The other men just stood there acting stupid, and, soon enough, one-by-one the giant ogre killed them all. When there was no one left, he turned to Leon.

I gasped loudly. "Look out!" I screamed through the bars of the wooden gate to the man who was about to get pummeled by a giant, pissed off ogre.

Just as the thing swung his fist around, as if to hit Leon like he did the others, Leon did a super-amazing backhand spring, dodging the attack. That really pissed it off. The giant roared in anger so loudly I had to cover my ears to keep from being temporarily deafened.

"Leon!" I shouted. I was terrified. "Oh god… Why did he have to lock me behind here…?" I hit and rattled the gate, but it was to no avail.

"_Shit!_" I heard Leon shout as the giant swung a tree at him. He dodged and then began shooting again. He had been using his _TMP_ the whole time, even though it wasn't the most powerful, no, that was the rifle. But the _TMP_ was rapid-fire, so it got in twenty-times the amount of bullets the rifle could get in a single second.

Just then, the thing hunched over in pain, clutching his head when a giant parasite sprouted out of his back. Said parasite was much like the one in the villager from before, except this one resembled more of a thick, white worm rather than a squid. Leon quickly climbed up the giant's back and began cutting the thing with his knife. After about eight cuts, the parasite retreated back into the giant's body, and Leon began shooting again.

Suddenly, he stopped: the gun had run out of ammo. My mind was racing as the giant slowly approached the agent.

"Oh, god no, please…" I whispered, waves of panic and dread rushing through my body.

Then suddenly, a howl was heard from up on the rocks.


	15. Chapter 15

_Aaaand chapter 15! No more for tonight, but I promise, __**promise,**__ I'll have chapter 16 up by tomorrow afternoon. Well... Enjoy!_

"Hey, it's that dog!" Leon and I said in unison.

The dog that we had saved from the bear trap was here to help Leon fight the monster. He used himself as a distraction while Leon now shot at it with his shotgun.

Once again, the giant was on his knees and the parasite was exposed. Leon climbed his back and cut the parasite until it returned back to its hiding place. Leon was almost out of shotgun ammo, too. He would need more to beat this thing.

"Leon!" I shouted. He looked at me and I pointed to the three shacks that were behind him. "I think there's ammo in there!"

He nodded and quickly ran into one of the shacks while the ogre wasn't looking. He came out holding his _TMP_, so I guessed there had been _TMP_ ammo in there.

He began quickly shooting again and soon enough, the giant was on his knees one last time before making a loud, angry roar and falling on his face. The gates reopened, and I ran up to Leon.

"Are you okay?" I asked, searching for any signs of injuries.

"I'm fine." He said blankly, even though there was an obvious gash on his forehead.

I looked at him sympathetically before laughing lightly and shaking my head.

"I could have helped, you know," I said, looking at his injury again.

"Did you see that thing?" He asked with a hint of playfulness in his voice.

I smiled briefly and stood on my toes, tentatively reaching my hand up to brush his hair back and look at his wound. Surprisingly, he didn't object. I grabbed a can of _First Aid Spray_ from my belt and shook it.

"Close your eyes…" I said softly.

He did as I said, and when I began spraying it, he very noticeably winced in pain.

"S-Sorry…" I stuttered, handing him the can, and looking at my feet. "Y-you can do it. I'll probably just end up making it worse."

"No… thanks. It feels better, actually."

I smiled but didn't say anything. He smiled too.

"Come on," he said. "We're almost there."

As we walked out of the arena, I couldn't help noticing that our arms were a little bit closer.

When we got back to the church, Leon put the key in its place and the doors unlocked. The church was a lot nicer than I expected, with a marble floor, benches, candles, anything you would expect to find in a normal church. Except in this one, instead of a cross on the back wall, there were four circles: one in the middle, one on top of that one, and two on the bottom. The one in the middle was lit up, and on it was the cult groups insignia (the bug looking symbol), and around it was multi-colored stained glass.

We turned left, walking in front of three benches and into a makeshift hallway that took up the length of the church. We climbed up a ladder to our right and browsed around the second floor. There was an opening in the wall in front of a giant chandelier and walking past that led to a door that had bars on either side of it. I guess the people didn't want anyone going through there. Leon rattled the bars, but it was to no avail.

"Ashley's _got_ to be in there," he said, observing the door.

He walked back over to the opening in the wall, getting a good look at the area.

"I'm going to have to jump across here."

"Like… across the chandelier?" I asked.

"Yeah, I need to get to the other side. There's a control panel over there, maybe it can release those bars."

"Alright… just be careful."

"Always am." He flashed me a smile that awoke the butterflies in my stomach and then jumped on top of the chandelier, swung forward, and leapt to the other side. When he safely landed, he walked over to the control panel and began pressing buttons. A few seconds later, the bars were raised, and the door was ready to be opened.

"Well aren't you going to open it?" I asked when the agent stared blankly at the door.

He cleared his throat and stepped forward. "Yeah."

I stood back as Leon slowly pushed open the door. "Ashley!" He said in a relieved tone.

"Don't come!" A frightened girl shouted. Through the cracked door I saw a piece of wood barely miss Leon's face.

_This chick is crazy…_ I thought to myself.

"Hey, take it easy." Leon shouted as he put his gun away.

I slowly pushed the door open the rest of the way and stood there, looking at the two. Ashley was pretty with her short, light blonde hair that came to just below her chin. She was wearing a green plaid skirt, an orange sleeveless turtle neck, and really cute brown boots that came to her knees. But despite her looks, she looked terrified and helpless. Being cooped up in a room with no contact with the outside world for more than eight hours had to have been tough.

"No! Get away!' Ashley backed up against a couple of barrels that were in the corner and slid down to her backside.

Leon bent down in front of her and spoke in a soothing manner. "Calm down, everything's going to be just fine. My name's Leon. I'm under the president's order to rescue you."

The blonde's head snapped up. "What? M-my father?" She looked almost to tears.

Leon nodded. "That's right." He said. "Now come with me."

_So? How'd you like it? Seeing any changes from the original? I know I have.. (duh). But anyways, all of you guys' precious review reeaalllyyy make me happy! So keep up with it, okay? The more review I get, the more motivated I am to update! So keep em comin, lovelies! _

_Alright, I gotta hit the hay. It's been a long day. (Wow that rhymed.) OH! And do any of you have a Tumblr? It's never really occurred to me to ask, but I'd love to follow you! You can follow me, my url is_ ** .com**_ and I'd love to get to know you guys more!_

_Okay I'll stop talking now. Byee!_


	16. Chapter 16

_And viola! Chapter 16! Today I'll be uploading to chapter 19 just for the fun of it. Enjoy!_

He grabbed her hand and helped her stand up. That was when she noticed me.

"Who is she?" She nervously eyed me up and down.

"This is Emily. She's been helping me on this mission."

"Oh…" She visibly relaxed, and walked over to me and tentatively stuck her hand out. "Hi, I'm Ashley Graham, the pre-"

"President's daughter, I know. We've been through hell trying to get to you." I informed her, sounding a little bitchier than I intended. She smiled weakly and looked away.

Just then, Leon began speaking. "It's Leon. I've succeeded in extricating my subject."

"Good work, Leon." I'll send a chopper over right away." Hunnigan replied.

"Where's the extraction point?"

"There's another path that you can take to get out of the village. The chopper will pick you up beyond there."

"Got it. I'm on my way."

We exited the room and when we got to the ladder, I jumped down as if it were nothing, and Leon did the same. However when it was Ashley's turn, she just stood there, hugging her skirt closer to her legs, looking uneasy.

"Well?" Leon asked.

"I-I don't know if I should…" She replied.

"What? Why-" Leon began, but I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him closer to my height.

"Leon, she's wearing a skirt." I whispered in his ear.

"Yeah, and?" He whispered back, looking confused.

In any other circumstances I would have face-palmed, but I just sighed. "Apparently she thinks you're some pervert who's going to stare at her ass while she's climbing down the ladder."

"O-Oh…" He straightened back up and hid his reddening cheeks with his hair. He was _blushing_. Oh gosh, my heart was melting.

Uhh… I didn't just say that…

"Look, Ashley, why don't you jump and have him catch you?" They both looked at me like I was an idiot, so I continued. "That way, he's forced to focus on catching you rather than looking… there…"

Leon nodded. "Not saying I would look anyways but… I can do that." He stood in front of the ladder with his arms out, ready to catch her. After she jumped, we walked back out into the main area of the church.

"I'll take the girls…" A strange voice said.

We all turned around. There was a man standing at the front of the church.

"Who are you?" Leon asked, eyeing the man. He was tall and tan, wearing a large, purple, floor-length robe, and had some kind of staff that looked terrifyingly similar to the "Plagas Head" Leon and I had encountered earlier.

"If you must know, my name is Osmund Saddler, the master of this fine, religious community." His voice scared me. I scooted behind Leon, and was practically hugging his back.

Leon glanced back at me and then over to Saddler. "What do you want?"

"To demonstrate to the whole world our outstanding power, of course. No longer will the United States think they can police the whole world forever! So, we kidnapped the president's daughter, in order to give her our power, and then… send her back…"

The blonde behind us gasped. "No… Leon, I think they shot something into my neck…"

Leon, being the protective sweetheart he is, took a few threatening steps forward. "What did you do to her?" He sounded pissed.

"We just planted her a little gift… Oh, there's going to be one hell of a party when she returns home to her loving father! But, before that, I thought I might bargain with the president for some donations. Believe it or not, it takes quite a lot of money to keep this church up and running."

"Faith in money will lead you nowhere, Saddler." Leon interrupted.

"Oh… I believe I forgot to tell you that we gave you the same gift."

Leon's hand flew to his neck. "While I was unconscious…"

Saddler continued. "Oh, I truly hope you like our small, but special contributions. When the eggs hatch, you will become my puppets. Involuntarily, you'll do as I say. I'll have absolute control of your minds… Oh and Emily," My head snapped up instinctively, and I focused my wide eyes on the man before me. "Don't think we forgot about you…" He grinned evilly at me. It was like something out of a horror film.

"No…" I backed up and hit the church doors, I would have done anything to get away from him. That was a big mistake. Just then, both of the doors swung open, pushing me to the ground and two cloaked men appeared in the doorway. One of the men grabbed me and threw me over his shoulder, while the other aimed his bow gun and anyone who dared to stop them.

I kicked and screamed. "_Leon!_"

"Emily!"

That was the last thing I heard before I fell unconscious.


	17. Chapter 17

_Here's chapter 17 for ya! Enjoy!_

I awoke in a cold sweat, jolting out of my forced slumber. My heart was racing, and I could hear my labored breathing in the darkness.

"H-Hello?" I called out. No answer. "Leon?" Nobody answered.

There was no light wherever I was, just pitch-black darkness. Other than my own breathing, the only thing I could hear was the rain outside and occasional thunder. I stood up to see how big the room was, when I noticed that my hands were tied behind my back.

I turned my body to the right and began walking, very cautiously. In a few steps I bumped into a wall; it was cool to the touch, and felt like stone. I kept walking, keeping my arm against the wall, until I had reached the corner. I then turned left and did the same thing, only this time, there was a door.

I thought desperately about how to untie my hands, when I remembered seeing a girl in a movie sit down, and bring her arms out from under her bent legs. Since my legs were short, I knew I could do it. Once my arms were in front of me, I felt for my gun: it was still there. I scoffed at how idiotically stupid these people were; they didn't even disarm me. I stood up and jiggled the door handle. It was locked from the outside.

I cursed under my breath. _Desperate times call for desperate measures…_ I thought. I began kicking the door and hitting it with my wrists, hoping that any sane person would hear me and come to my rescue.

"_HELP!_" I screamed. "Leon! … Ashley! … Anyone!"

After about thirty minutes of constant shouting, my voice grew hoarse, and I was pretty sure my arms had begun to bleed, and they stung worse than the rope burn from before. I sat back down beside the door with my legs crossed, and tried to undo the knot with my teeth. I eventually gave up; the knot was too tight. Once again, I began to cry. I felt bad, but I couldn't stop the tears from overflowing and spilling out of my eyes and down my cheeks. Horrible thoughts had entered my mind. _I'll never get out of here…_ I thought. _Leon probably isn't even looking for me…_

That was when I heard a loud bang on the door. I quickly stood up and ran to the other side of the room; I didn't want those freaks anywhere near me. I wouldn't doubt that they had injected the vile parasite into my neck while I was knocked out, what other horrible plans could they have in mind?

I took out my gun and held it with both of my hands, pointing it at what I had guessed what the door. There was another loud bang, and the door came crashing down.

"No! Stay away!" It wasn't until later that I realized how much I had sounded like Ashley when I said that.

"Emily?" A familiar Hispanic voice said.

"L-Luis?" Then, lightning flashed and I got a short glimpse of the man's face. "Luis!"

I put my gun away and ran up to greet him.

"What happened to you?" He asked me, his voice thick with his accent.

"S-Saddler… These two men took me… that's the last thing I can remember…" I explained.

"Shit! I was afraid of this… I hate to say it, but he has most likely already injected the parasite into your body. You're safe… for now. But after you start coughing up blood, I'm afraid there won't be much time." He untied my hands as he explained. When he was finished, I rubbed my wrists.

"W-where's Leon?"

"How should I know?"

"I thought you might have run into him on the way here or something…"

He shook his head, making his long brown locks fall into his face. "This place is huge. He could be long gone by now." When he noticed the pained look in my eyes, he spoke again. "But, from what I can tell, he cares about you. I'm sure he's going nuts trying to find you."

I didn't say anything after that.

We left the room that I was held captive in and began walking through a thick forest. It was dark out, and I had no idea where we were going, so it was hard to keep up with the man. As we were walking through the woods, I tripped over a tree root and hit my head on some rocks. We didn't have a flashlight so we couldn't tell how bad it was. He helped me stand back up, and caught me when I nearly fell again.

"Easy now…" He said. "We're almost there. There's a First Aid Kit in the house, do you think you can make it?"

I nodded, even thought I was starting to feel a little dizzy, and we kept walking. About five minutes later, we made it to the house he had spoken of earlier. It was pretty decent in size, two stories, but it only had two rooms. The bottom floor was used as a dining/living area, while the top floor was used as a bedroom.

Luis pulled out one of the chairs from the table for me to sit on, while he went upstairs to grab the First Aid Kit. I could feel my heartbeat in the wound, so it had to have been pretty bad. I was suddenly reminded of my right leg, the one that had been caught in a bear trap. I looked down at it; the bandage around my calf would need to be changed soon.

When he got back, he dabbed my forehead with a wet washcloth to clean up the blood, and I asked if he could change the bandage on my leg, too, which he replied with a '_Sure, no problem.'_

"So how do you know your way around so well?" I asked.

"My grandfather… He used to hunt in this region a while back. Before he died, he taught me where most of his secret passages and short cuts were."

"What did he hunt?"

He put the wet washcloth aside, and pulled out a can of first aid spray and some gauze and medical tape. "Oh, you know… deer, rabbits, things like that. Now, this is going to sting."

"I know." I smiled, thinking back to my leg, and how nice Leon was when it was injured. I wondered if he was okay, what had happened after I left?

While I was busy thinking about Leon, I didn't even notice that Luis had finished with my head, and was now re-bandaging my leg.

He had sprayed it with some more First Aid Spray, put gauze over the wounds, and then wrapped my entire calf with an Ace Bandage.

"Alright, I think that's it. As long as you don't mess with either injury too much, you should be fine. You know, it's not good being that clumsy."

I lightly chuckled and felt the bandage on my head. "You know, you didn't have to do that… Or save me from that room."

He shrugged. "I like helping people."

I smiled. Luis was actually really sweet... and handsome. He and Leon could probably be really good friends.

That reminded me. "So, you really have no idea where Leon might be?"

"Aye, _señorita._ I wish I did."

He sat down at the table across from me. He must have noticed my gloomy face, because then he said, "What do you like so much about him, anyway?"

I immediately blushed and smiled. "Oh, I don't know. He's nice, and sweet, funny, generous. He has really nice eyes. And hair. And I don't know… I guess I kinda-"

"Love him?" He asked suggestively, with a growing smirk on his face.

_My_ face, however, was so red I was worried it was unhealthy. "U-uh, w-what?"

"It's pretty obvious. It's written all over your face."

"Oh?" I tried to play it cool. "And when did you become such an expert of the subject?" I leaned forward.

"Since I saw how much you _gush_ over him!" He leaned forward too.

"Jealous, much?" I leaned in further.

"You wish." So did he.

Suddenly, the door flew open and in came a hurried man, followed by a scared woman.


	18. Chapter 18

"Leon?" Luis and I said in unison. I blushed and he smirked, our faces still close.

"Are we interrupting something?" Leon asked, confused.

I pulled away so quickly that I nearly fell out of my chair. "What? N-no!" I stammered at the same time Luis calmly said "Yes." I felt like slapping him senseless.

Leon rolled his eyes and decided to change the subject. "Hey, Luis, you got something I can lock this with?"

He was already on it. He tossed Leon a bar, and he put it in its place, locking the door.

Luis was eyeing Ashley… in a particular area. "Oh, and I see the president has equipped his daughter with ballistics too…"

She gasped. "How rude! And I don't believe there's any relevance with my figure and my standing. Who are you?" Damn. Daddy's little girl's got some attitude. But I didn't get why he said that about _her_, I mean, my chest was _clearly-_

"Oh-hoh, well _excuse me_ your highness," He interrupted my thoughts. "But perhaps someone might want to introduce herself first, before asking someone his name."

"The name's Ashley Graham, the president's daughter."

Luis turned to Leon. "Is she…? Well, you know." He meant infected with the parasite.

Obviously Leon didn't understand. "Don't worry, she's cool."

I wasn't paying much attention to what they were saying anymore, I was too busy staring out the window at the hundreds of villagers marching their way up to the house.

"Uh… Leon? Should we be worried about those guys?"

The agent looked out the window at what I was pointing at. "Dammit!" He cursed. "You two, go hide upstairs, now!"

Ashley started heading for the stairs, but I stayed in place.

"Have you forgotten that I have a gun, too? Leon, we've been over this, I can help."

He grunted in frustration. "No. There's too many of them this time."

"Just trust me, I can handle it!"

"I said _NO!_" He shouted.

We all had shocked faces, even Leon.

"I… I mean…"

I nodded weakly. "I know... Come on Ashley." I began walking upstairs with my head down, not really caring if Ashley followed me or not.

Of course she did, and when we got upstairs I turned to her with my hand out.

"I'm sorry if I sounded like a bitch earlier. It's just that a lot has happened and… I just want to go home."

She shook my hand with a smile and said, "I know, me too. This place is a dystopia."

There was the sudden sound of wood breaking and gunshots and we quickly darted our eyes across the room, searching for a place to hide, causing us both to run for the wardrobe at the same time.

We stood there, frozen in place and afraid to move. All we could hear were the gunshots, and there was no way for us to tell if they were alright or not. Suddenly, there was the loud sound of glass shattering and we heard Luis yell "Leon, upstairs!" from the floor below.

The two men both ran upstairs as a surplus of villagers crawled through the windows. They continued shooting for about another five minutes when Luis said "This never ends!" That seemed to be true. It felt like Ashley and I were in that closet for an eternity before the gun shots eventually died down, and we couldn't hear the two men any more. For a second I was frightened, worried that they had been killed, and now they were being taken to Saddler. I cracked one of the doors to the wardrobe open the slightest bit, with my gun ready to be fired. But I didn't see anybody, so I assumed they were downstairs. We stepped out of the wardrobe and Ashley dusted off her shirt.

"It's no use. You're just going to get dirty again."

She shrugged and changed the topic. "So… what, are you a secret agent or something? You don't look old enough."

I shook my head and smiled slightly. "No, I'm only seventeen. Leon and I were separated for a while, and I bought the gun myself."

"He wasn't angry?"

I shrugged. "No, not really. He'd seen me shoot a gun before, so I guess he didn't care."

She didn't say anything for a while, but when she did it was barely above a whisper. "He was worried about you, you know."

I looked up at her, stunned. How could he have been worried about me? I was such a pest to him…

Before I could say anything, she continued. "After you were taken away, he would barely even talk to me. And when he did it was about you. He blamed himself for you being taken away like that, and I don't think he thought that he would be able to rescue you in time before they…" She trailed off, not wanting to finish that sentence.

She didn't have to; I knew what she was going to say. "Oh…"

Just then Leon came walking back up the stairs. "Hey, are you girls alri-" He stopped when he noticed my teary eyes. He rushed over to me. "Emily, is everything okay? What's wrong?" He did a once over of me, checking for any injuries, and when he saw my bandaged forehead he carefully examined it before saying, "Hey, what happened?"

I wiped my cheeks and shook my head before wrapping my arms around him. He was obviously even more confused than before, but after a while he gently hugged me back.

"I'm sorry…" I whispered.

"For what…?" He asked.

"For making you worry."

I literally felt the realization wash over him. He hesitantly rubbed my back while I sobbed into his chest. "Hey, don't cry over that… I mean, of course I was worried, but the important thing is that you're okay."

"But Saddler…"

He nodded. "I know… But you have to remember that Ashley and I are in the exact same situation right now, and-"

I quickly backed away and blinked away the remainder of my tears. "Oh, s-so now you're calling me conceited or something? Look, Leon-"

Before I could finish, Ashley butted in. "No, Emily, I think what he means is that we're in this together."

The agent nodded. "Yeah… You're not alone. We're here for you; we know exactly how you're feeling."

That only managed to make all of the tears come flooding back. "No, you don't! Leon, m-my parents were _killed_ by those _things!_" Apparently Ashley hadn't known about that, because she gasped loudly. "I… I don't want to become something that will… that will make someone feel the way I do…"

Before I knew it, Leon was hugging me again. It took me by complete surprise; he didn't seem like the type of guy who would hug someone willingly like that, but he did… and it felt… nice.

Ashley cleared her throat beside us. "So… what are we going to do Leon?"

I unwrapped my arms from his torso and looked up, waiting for an answer.

"Uh… well… I guess we have no choice but to keep moving."

Ashley and I both nodded our heads in agreement and we began walking outside.


	19. Chapter 19

_Tada! Chapter 19! See, I promised you guys I'd deliver. Enjoy! _

Outside of the house was a bridge, another little shack thing, two enormous gates, and the merchant.

"So is this the guy you bought your gun from?" Ashley asked me once we walked up to the masked man.

I nodded my head and the blonde female turned to our rescuer. "Leon, I want a gun."

The man furrowed his brow, and rubbed his hand against his forehead, obviously annoyed. "Not you too…"

She rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips. "You let her have one! And she's not even legally allowed to!"

"Hey, don't bring me into thi-"

Leon cut me off. "Well, neither are you, Ashley."

She grunted in frustration. "That doesn't change anything. She's not even an adult yet, she shouldn't even know _how_ to use a gun!"

What did she mean 'I shouldn't even know how to use a gun'? Was she being serious? "Yeah, well, neither should you, Mrs. _I'm-so-perfect-because-my-daddy's-the-president. _Take a look at the situation we're in. This shouldn't be able to happen either, but it did and here we are. Now, whether he buys you a gun or not, I want to get the hell out of this place before I completely lose my mind."

I trudged off in the direction of the little shack while they gaped at me, in shock.

In said shack there was a typewriter and a note.

"_Two Routes_" It read.

"_Just a while ago, I was informed by Lord Saddler that our men had shot down a United States military helicopter. There shouldn't be any more outside interference for a while now._

"_The Lord has also informed me that the younger girl has also escaped. Although she already has the Plagas egg in her, we still need to recapture her, along with the other girl, to initiate our plan to the fullest._

"_The three Americans can only get out of our territory by using one of two routes. This is where we will stop them._

"_We shall make uses of our forces to the greatest degree._

"_We will deploy a large number of Ganados…"_

"Is that what those things are called…?" I whispered aloud to myself, before continuing to read.

"…_in one of the routes to ensure that they do not slip by us. For the other route we shall leave the task to the giant. Whichever route they take, the agent will never leave here alive. Not with the girls at least."_

This worried me. I mean, sure, we've fought 'a numerous amount of Ganados before, and Leon has fought one of those giant things before, but the way they described it in the note sent chills down my spine.

I walked out of the shack and saw Leon and Ashley talking prices with the merchant. Apparently, Leon had given in, and bought Ashley a gun. I wondered if she even knew how to use it correctly.

"Hey, what's that?" Leon asked me, pointing to the note while Ashley stuck her gun in-between her belt and her shirt.

"Another note. Basically, all it says is that we have to pick one of these doors to go through." I pointed to said doors/gates.

"Okay… well what's so bad about that?"

"One route holds another giant, and the other holds a lot of those freaky villagers."

"Does it say which is which?"

I shook my head. "No, just that either one we take, we won't make it out alive…"

Nobody said anything to that. We walked over to the lever that opened the gates and stared at it.

"Well… are you going to pull it?" Ashley asked.

"Ashley, it's not that simple. One of these routes could lead us to our unfortunate deaths." I explained.

"I highly doubt that. They want us alive, right? I don't think killing us would make that Saddler guy very happy."

She had a point. But, in the note it said all he wanted was the girls, and that the 'agent' was going to die. Why did he only want us? He said he wanted Ashley alive to send her back to the states after she had the egg, but why me? How was I important? Maybe he just had a thing for young girls and he was planning on-

"My gut says go left." Leon interrupted my thoughts, thankfully.

"Why left?" I asked.

"It just seems like the easier way to go."

"Are you sure…?" I pondered aloud.

He didn't answer, he just pulled the lever to the left, and that gate opened. He didn't have to say anything for me to know that he was, in fact, not sure; his face said it all.

When we opened the door we were greeted by "_Allí esta!"_'s and _"Un forastero!_"'s. There was a wagon with barrels in front of us, and a lot of villagers gathered around it, walking slowly towards us. So, me being me, I did the first thing that came to mind: I shot the barrels. They exploded, and every villager within range of the fire was engulfed in flames. Once there were no more Ganados in sight, Leon told us to wait where we were while he went and checked the area out.

Ashley and I stood there in awkward silence until-

_VroooOOmm VROOOOMM…_

Two chainsaws started and we saw Leon running for his life back to us.

"_Chainsaws_?" I asked Leon. He breathlessly nodded as the two women made their way towards the three of us.

"Girls, get in there!" Leon commanded, pointing to a rusty, orange, dumpster-looking container.

I glanced at the container. It was wide, but not very tall. We could both probably fit in it if we crouched down.

The two women got closer; they were jumping down from the ledge Leon came from. I was torn. One part of me said "_No, stay here with Leon. Help him fight, prove to him that you're stronger than he thinks._" While the other side said "_Just get in there already! Do you want to get yourself killed? Leon has had special training for these kinds of things, just imagine how he would feel if you were killed by them!"_

I glanced at the container, and back at Leon. He was pulling out his _TMP_, ready to shoot the living daylights out of the two women. The latter was right; he _could_ handle this by himself. I quickly ran for the orange container of which Ashley was already hiding in and we shut the lid and tried to listen for the sounds of gunshots, but the chainsaws were too loud.

I covered my ears and put my head between my knees. _I should have stayed out there…_ I thought. _He's going to get killed and it's all my fault…_

I felt a hand gently place itself on my upper right arm. "He's going to be alright…" Ashley whispered in the darkness.

I looked up at her and in the light coming through a tiny crack in the lid, I saw her comforting eyes. I nodded slightly and we sat there, waiting for all the noise to stop.

_So? What did you think? Was Leon OOC? What about Ashley? And do you think Emily is too Mary-Sue? Please tell me what you think in that little review box down there! The reviews I get from you guys mean the world to me! Keep 'em coming!_


	20. Chapter 20

_Sorry, not much to offer today. I'll be back with more tomorrow! Enjoy!_

After about ten minutes of absolute horror later, we heard Leon whistle, giving us the signal that it was okay to come out. We followed the area of which the sound came from, and were eventually by Leon's side again.

"Thank you." He said, looking at me.

"For what?" I looked up at him, with a confused look on my face.

Apparently, he thought it was funny, because he laughed and pat my head. "For doing what I said. I know you wanted to stay out and help, but you went and hid with Ashley anyways. Thank you for that."

"Well, I knew you could handle it by yourself."

We smiled at each other for a moment, before Ashley said something.

"Yeah, about that… when are we actually going to get to use our guns? I don't want you wasting your money on things that we aren't even going to use."

"Yeah…" I turned to Leon with mischief obvious in my expression and he sighed.

"Alright, fine. The next time we run into a group of those things, I'll let you help."

Ashley and I squealed and high-fived each other, making Leon laugh.

"So, where to next, Mr. Macho-man?" I was strangely in too good of a mood to blush at the fact that I basically just called Leon hot and muscular.

The agent smirked at me and said, "Through this door, I guess."

We stepped through the door and thunder boomed loudly, making Ashley and I scream, and Leon full out guffaw. This stopped shortly afterwards though, because we gave him our famous death-glares and he quieted down.

Responding to our screams, more villagers came crawling out from around the corner. Ashley and I looked up at Leon for approval, and when he nodded, we pulled out our guns and began shooting. The whole time, Ashley never could get the hang of shooting the gun. The only time she hit someone, it was in their shoulder, and they just kept trying to kill us. A few times, one of the villagers would pick either Ashley or I up and throw us over his shoulder, carrying us away. Luckily though, Leon would shoot the Ganado, making him drop us on the ground, which hurt like hell, mind you.

When everyone was gone, and we made our way to a red, rusted door about thirty yards away from us, I turned to Leon. "It's locked, what do we do?"

"Well, I found this key on one of those chainsaw-wielding…"

"Bitches." I said, finishing Leon's sentence.

He chuckled. "Yes, and I think it goes to this door."

He put the key in the lock and, _ta-da!, _it magically opened. Well, not 'magically', but you know what I mean.

Before we knew it, we were standing on a bridge, facing the biggest doors we've seen so far. They were an old, golden color and stood at about fifteen to twenty feet tall. We walked up to said doors and pulled on them: locked, of course.

"Looks like this is the only way out of the village." Leon said, then examining the lock closer, "This looks like some sort of retinal scanner…"

"Well, what does that mean?" I asked.

"It's kind of like a fingerprint scanner, but instead of scanning your fingerprint, it reads your eye-"

"I know what it _does_, but what does it mean for us? How are we supposed to get out of here?"

When he didn't say anything, Ashley spoke up. "Keep moving?" She asked.

He looked at her and smiled. "Yeah."

So that's what we did. We walked left of the door and came up to a lift that carried you over a big trench, and I was starting to believe that this whole place was built on one. The lift was rusty, but it was the only way to go, so we got on. I tried to forget about my recent discover of my fear of heights, but about halfway across the lift, an axe flew towards our cart and nearly hit me in the face. Thankfully, though, Ashley had pushed me out of the way in time.

There were villagers on the other side of the lift, and on platforms suspended against cliff sides to the right of us. Every once and a while, someone would jump down on top of the cart, and try to break us free from the line, but we always shot them before they could do anything.

Finally, we had shot everyone down, and we reached the other side. We carefully stepped off and did a once-over of each other, making sure no one was hurt. When we didn't find any injuries, we continued walking.

There were steep, metal stairs that we had to walk down, and once our feet had touched the dirt again, we reached another merchant. I greeted him with my usual British accent, which Ashley hadn't heard yet; that gave her a good laugh. There were no new upgrades, but it gave Leon a chance to sell some of the Spinel's he had picked up along the way here. Once we were finished with everything, we thanked the kind man and continued walking.

We entered a door and the first thing I noticed was the big barn/storage looking building a few yards away. There was a little slope downward, and then following the beaten path, we walked up to it. Leon approached the door with caution and put his hand on the door handle.

"You girls better stay outside." He said. "Go find a place to hide while I check this out."

"But Leon-" I began.

"Please, just do it!"

I didn't like it when he shouted like that, but I knew from experience not to question him if he said he had a bad feeling about something. Ashley and I quickly ran to the side of the building and hid between the wall and some rocks. You could hardly see anything except what little the moonlight shone down on.

"I hope he's going to be okay…" Ashley whispered.

"Yeah, me too."

"It would suck if he died and left us out here…"

"Ashley please," I whispered harshly. "I don't want to think about that right now."

"S-sorry…" Then she changed the subject. "Then what do you want to talk about?"

"Umm… I don't know… how's life as the president's daughter…?" I managed to finally say. It was all I could think of.

The blonde laughed beside me. "It's tough, to be honest. Everybody always wants to know where you are, and what you're doing every second of the day… I can't leave my house without being swarmed by flashing cameras and hasty news reporters. I was actually thinking of getting my own apartment instead of living in the White House."

"Is it really that tough? It seems pretty easy when I see you on T.V."

"That's all just an act for the cameras… and I'm not the only one, either. My father thinks it's tough too."

"Well, he did a good job by hiring Leon, that's for sure."

We both laughed and then suddenly, there was a loud bang and the building beside us caught on fire.


	21. Chapter 21

_Gahhh sorry for the delay guys! I've just been so stressed out over STAAR tests and everything! I don't know why I didn't take them into account when I promised to consistently upload, but I swear I'll have 4 or 5 for you tomorrow! Anyways, here's chapter 21. Enjoy!_

"Do you think he's okay…?" I whispered to Ashley. She didn't say anything; we just listened in intense silence for gunshots.

Finally, after a few dreading seconds, the surprisingly peaceful sounds of Leon's _TMP_ were heard coming from inside the building.

We were both terrified, and we both knew it, but we pretended like we weren't and continued talking. I learned a lot about her, actually. I found out that when she was five she broke her right leg, and when she was eight she and her father lived on a farm and owned six horses. Even that her favorite was a white Bronco named Angel.

I told her about myself, too. About how when I was two I got a bead stuck in my nose, when I was five or six I broke my wrist, and that I've been teaching myself how to play the piano since I was nine or ten and that I was pretty good at it, if I did say so myself. I also told her about the time when I was twelve and I wore my Santa hat _all_ year long, and when I finally took it off, there was a rat in my hair.

Ashley cracked up at this. "_What?_ No there wasn't!"

I didn't deny it (because there actually wasn't, I just made it up to see what she would say), I just laughed right along with her. We didn't even notice when a tall, handsome man emerged from the burning building a few feet in front of us. It completely startled us when he spoke.

"Well, I see you two are closer than ever." He said with a smirk.

We both jumped up from our spot in the dirt (more like mud), and greeted him with flying hugs…. Literally. I practically glomped the man. My feet weren't on the ground, I had my arms wrapped around his neck and I was holding myself up like that, all the while Ashley was almost on the floor because she was laughing so hard at the blush on Leon's face.

"Oh my gosh Leon, we were so worried about you!"

He gently set me down and nervously chuckled. "I can see that…"

When I noticed how red his face was, I felt like laughing too, but I didn't since it probably would have wounded his pride or something. Instead I let my cheeks bloom as red as his.

We carefully walked back to the giant doors and when we reached them, Ashley and I both looked up and Leon expectantly.

"Leon, I thought it was a retinal scanner," Ashley said. "How are you going to open it?"

"With this." He dug into his pocket and pulled out what looked like an-

"Is that an _eyeball?_" Ashley shouted.

"Yeah, the guy had a false eye… I figured that this was the key to the door."

"So you just took the liberty of sticking your fingers into his skull and pulling it out? That's disgusting beyond belief!" I couldn't help but loudly snort at her last comment.

"What? No, it just fell out!" Leon defending himself like that was pretty funny, too.

"But it was still in his head, Leon! And you're _touching_ it!"

"It's not like it's-"

"Oh for God's sake…" I reached up and snatched the fake eye from Leon's hand and held it in front of Ashley. "Touch it."

"W-what?"

"You heard me; I said 'touch it'."

"But it's an _eye!_" She whined.

"Ashley, it's glass. It's not squishy or anything and it's barely even slimy anymore."

She narrowed her eyes and stared at the thing. I could tell she wanted to touch it, she wanted to _badly_. Slowly, she stuck her arm out, index finger pointed, and felt the cool glass that was in my hand. When she touched it, she whimpered softly and I rolled my eyes. She retracted quickly and wiped her finger on her shirt.

"T-there."

I sighed and handed the eye back to Leon. He chuckled and held it up to the scanner, and the doors opened.

We were standing on a road that slanted uphill, and there were three Ganados standing at the top of it. Leon pulled out his trusty rifle and shot their heads clean off, receiving high-fives from me and Ashley. Once we began walking, there was the loud sound of a car horn and we looked up incredulously to see a truck speeding down the hill, headed straight for us. And of course, there was a dead end, so we had nowhere to run.

"What are we going to do?" I shouted over the noise of the horn.

Leon quickly rose up the rifle and shot the driver, making the car crash right in front of us.

"Well… I guess that works…"

Leon smiled and shook his head at me again, and we began walking up the road.

Right after we passed the crashed truck, a dozen of villagers crawled out of the back of it and began running towards us. We all pulled out our guns and began shooting people's heads off. Well, Leon and I did anyway. Ashley's aim was a little better, but not as good as ours, so she stuck with shooting them in the chest. Once everyone was dead, Ashley turned to me and gaped.

"Can I help you…?" I questioned.

"How do you aim so well? I _suck!"_

Leon and I laughed. "I don't know… it kind of comes naturally I guess."

She let it go with a "Hmph…", but we could tell she was still curious about it.

With another glance behind us, we turned and began walking up the road. There was a castle on the other side of a bridge, believe it or not. I guessed that's where we were headed.

Suddenly, _hundreds_ of villagers came through the door from before and began running up the hill towards us.

"To the other side of the bridge!" Leon shouted.

Ashley and I nodded and we all bolted for the bridge; I had never run so fast in my life.

When we were on the other side, there were two cranks. "You girls take that one!" Leon directed.

"Okay." We said in unison. We grabbed the handle and began pushing forward and turning the crank. It hurt like _hell_. The thing probably hadn't been used for _ages_, it was rusty, and it took almost our entire upper-body strengths combined to get the thing turning. Once we did though, the bridge began slowly rising, and eventually, it was all the way up.

We all stood there breathlessly, as we examined the bridge. We couldn't hear the villagers anymore, so we assumed they had given up and left.

"Come on." Leon said. And we entered the castle.

_As I said earlier, be expecting 4 or 5 chapters from me tomorrow. They may not all be uploaded at the same time, I 'unno. We'll just have to see. See you guys later~!_


	22. Chapter 22

_Aaand I'm back! Told you guys I wouldn't be long. Anyways, here's chapter 22. The rest is on the way. Enjoy!_

We were standing in the area before the entrance to the castle, and there were trees beside a little shack with a blue torch in front of it, and stairs on the left of the wall in front of us.

We all walked into the shack and the Merchant politely greeted us with his famous _'Welcome!'_. But I, however, was too exhausted to haggle with the man.

Ashley and I sat on the dirt floor while Leon sold weapons and bought new ones for twice as much as they should be. I closed my eyes and fought to stay awake until I heard Leon ask, "What's this?"

I turned my head to him and the Merchant and saw a shiny, silver, _very_ familiar looking gun in his hands.

"Ah…" The Merchant said. "That's one of the finest pistols I have in stock. It's name's the _Blacktail_ and-"

He didn't need to say anymore. "_What?!"_ I quickly jumped up from my spot on the ground, shocking everyone, and snatched the Blacktail out of Leon's hands.

"Woah! Easy! Be careful with that thing!" Leon shouted, afraid that I would be careless enough to shoot the gun in my surprising outburst. How rude.

"I-I'm sorry. It's just that this is the _Blacktail!_ I've wanted one of these since I was like twelve!"

Leon, still confused (which was surprisingly cute, mind you), began to say, "Wait, wh_-_"

"How much do you want for this? I'll pay anything!"

The kind man chuckled and said, "That there is twenty-four thousand."

I gaped at him. All I had was about eighteen. I turned to Leon; I hadn't used my puppy dog eyes in a while…

I put on my best sad face (Well, I didn't really have to, I was already upset.) and looked up at the agent through batting eyelashes. "Leon…?"

He looked at me and sighed. "Nope. Nuh-uh. I'm sorry, but I'm putting my foot down on this one."

My eyes grew wide and my voice sounded devastated. "W-what?" It's not like I was used to getting what I wanted or anything, because it was the _complete_ opposite, I just _really _wanted that gun- more than anything! How could he just say no?

"You heard me." He said. "If you want this gun, you're going to have to save up yourself."

"But Leon, if I did that, I would feel like I was stealing from you. You're the one who always finds all the Spinels and everything! How am I supposed to save up?"

"Loot off all the people you kill."

"I-…" Did he really just say that? "Leon, that's stealing."

He laughed. "What, and you think taking everything else isn't?"

"Yeah but that's different! And who would even want to touch those things after they're dead, anyways?"

Apparently, Ashley had been listening in on our little conversation. "You don't have to touch them; they just disintegrate into the ground." She stated.

"See? There you go. Problem solved."

"But, _Leon_-" I whined.

"No. You can't just keep cheating your way through life by using your looks and your little puppy-dog face forever."

"M-My looks?"

He ignored me. "Come on, let's go."

_My _looks_?_ I thought. I had never really thought I was ugly, but I sure as hell didn't think someone as hot as _Leon_ would pay any attention to how _I_ looked.

I turned to Ashley with wide eyes and mouthed the words _'My looks?!'_ to her. She gave me a huge grin and two thumbs up. While I was trying to re-gather myself, Leon turned around, waiting for us expectantly. "You girls coming or what?"

The blush on my face was obvious as I walked passed him.

We walked through a door and were surrounded by stone. Everything around us was a depressing, gray color. We took a few steps forward and then-

"_Morir es vivir… Morir es vivir…"_

I froze in my tracks, turning deathly pale, my eyes wide.

"Hey, what is it?" "What's wrong?" Ashley and Leon asked me in unison.

To them, those words meant nothing, but after taking 4 years of Spanish…

"_Muere… Muere... Muere…" _

My breath grew faster and my brows furrowed.

"Emily, what are they saying?" Leon asked me, in a stern, yet comforting voice.

I took a deep breath, inhaling the dirty air around us. "T-to die is to live…"

"_Muere… Muere… Muere…"_ Came more chanting.

"Die… Die… Die…" I translated in a shaky voice.

"It's okay…" Leon whispered. "I won't let them hurt us."

I nodded and took another deep breath, regaining my courage.

"Wait here." Leon said, as he rounded a corner up ahead.

I turned to the blonde beside me. "You must think I'm the biggest baby on the planet, huh? I can't even hear a few words coming from those people without freaking out." I attempted a laugh.

"No… Actually, I think you're really brave. I wouldn't even be able to _live_ if…" She trailed off, thankfully. I didn't want to think about… you-know-who at the time… And it wasn't Voldemort.

"Yeah…"

Two loud gun-shots were heard (judging by the sound, it was probably the rifle), and Leon came trotting back around the corner.

"There were two of those things up there." Leon explained. "You girls stay close, just in case there's more."

We both nodded and followed Leon as we rounded a corner and walked up short, winding, stone stairs. The agent held up his hand, signaling us to wait, and I leaned up against the wall beside us and waited for him to come back from doing his thing. Leon took two steps out into the open area when suddenly-

"_Aii esta… Mátelo!" _

There were the sounds of explosion and fire was visible from around the corner.


	23. Chapter 23

"Leon!" Ashley and I screamed in almost perfect unison.

When he didn't respond, I took my gun out from its place on the holster and checked to see if it had ammo in it: fully loaded.

"Ashley, you stay here."

She grabbed my arm. "But wait, he said to stay here."

"Ashley, he could be dead out there, or very close to it. I need to go see if he's alright." I checked my belt and grunted. "Do you have any first aid sprays?" The blonde shook her head and I sighed. "I know Leon does. I'll just use those."

"What if they're damaged?"

"… I'll be back soon." I tossed her a box of ammo. "Here. Only use it if you need to."

She nodded and took out her gun.

It felt weird being the one in charge; I was so used to Leon always telling me what to do. It was different… and it didn't feel right seeing as she was so much older than me.

I took a deep breath and popped my head around the corner. I didn't see anybody, just some dude in a red cloak and some sort of goat mask or something standing up on a higher level. Leon was nowhere in sight. I glanced back up at the cloaked man and noticed a red barrel sitting next to him.

Narrowing my eyes, I raised my gun up and concentrated. I focused on the wind, the sound of my heart beating in my chest, and blocked out all outside thoughts. As soon as I pulled the trigger, it hit the barrel dead on. Fire flew everywhere and the cloaked man collapsed to the floor after being engulfed in flames. I did a little victory dance in my head before bolting straight out into the open.

I got about halfway to the entry way across the room when I glanced to my left for a split second; Leon was standing in an arch-way reloading his gun.

I did a double take. "Leon?"

He looked at me, and then above me and his eyes grew wide. "Move!"

Not understanding why he said that, I turned around and looked up. There was a giant ball of flames headed right for me.

The next thing I knew, my legs were moving on their own. I was running faster than I thought possible, but it wasn't fast enough. Right before the fire hit me, I did an impressive summersault dive that would have at least scored me a nine at the Olympics. As soon as my face was about to meet the ground, I tucked and rolled into the arch-way that Leon was standing in, and as far as I was concerned, into safety.

I stood up and dusted my shirt off. "Did you _see_ that?! I _knew_ those few months of gymnastics would pay off!"

The man smiled for a second, and then pointed at my left leg. "You scraped your leg, though."

My adrenaline was pumping so fast at the moment, I couldn't have cared less. "Yes, but Leon, it's better than being engulfed in a fiery death."

He shrugged. "Where's Ashley?"

"Over there by the stairs. We thought you were dead so-"

"You really don't have much faith in me do you?"

"Leon, if I didn't have any faith in you, I wouldn't have trusted you with my life and followed you all the way here, now would I?"

He smiled and brushed a hand through his hair. "Yeah, I guess not."

I smirked at him in a sort of '_I told you so_' kind of way. "Kay, so what do we do now?"

"Well, I guess we could slip by that guy quick enough to get over there." He pointed to the other arch-way that led to a square section with what looked like stairs that led to an upper level.

"Well, what about Ashley?"

"Right… they'd fire at her at her if she tried to come over here."

"But doesn't Saddler want her alive? He'd be pretty pissed if she was killed."

"True…"

_"… ASHLEY!"_ I yelled in her direction and Leon quickly wrapped his left arm around my rib cage, holding my back against his chest and used his right to cover my mouth.

"Do you want to get us killed?!"

I shoved his hand away and tried to look at him, which was pretty hard considering the position we were in. "It's not like those freaks know what I'm saying."

"But it's still a sound and that's what sets them off."

I laughed. "We're talking right now, isn't that sound?"

"No, we're talking softly enough so that they can't hear us."

"Uh… should I come back later…?" Ashley was standing right beside us in the arch-way, with a huge blush on her face.

"Yes." "No." Leon and I said in unison, except I was the one who said yes this time. Leon quickly let me go and I was left with this strange, wandering feeling.

Ashley giggled at our disagreement, and Leon looked at me with a look on his face that said _'Really?'_ I shrugged and smirked at him in a flirty way and he rolled his eyes.

We all walked up the first set of stairs and stood in the corner of the platform that comes before the second set of stairs. Leon turned to Ashley and me and spoke in a stern voice.

"Stay… here…" Call me crazy, but it felt like that was mostly directed to me.

Once again, as soon as Leon stepped out from our hiding place, fiery balls of death were thrown at our rescuer. I had to physically resist the urge to go help him. It was horrible. My heart was racing a million beats per second. I was scared he wouldn't dodge in time, and he would be crushed and burned to death.

But he always did. I mean, he was Leon Scott Kennedy for Pete's sake. He could do practically anything. I smiled, thinking to myself how awesome he was. He could have been Chuck Norris's son. Oh boy… time for the jokes.

_Jesus walks on water, Leon S. Kennedy swims through land. _I thought.

_Leon S. Kennedy can make lemonade out of oranges._

_When doing pushups, Leon isn't pushing himself up – he's pushing the Earth down._

_Fear of spiders is called arachnophobia, fear of tight spaces is claustrophobia, fear of Leon S. Kennedy is called Logic. _

_Leon S. Kennedy can make a woman climax by simply pointing at her and saying "Booya."_

I couldn't stop myself from bursting out laughing at the last one, receiving a look from Ashley like she thought I was insane; which I probably was.

"No-… It's just…" I tried to explain, but I couldn't stop laughing.

"Okay…" She gave me another 'what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you' face while saying that, making my laughing fit even worse.

"Girls!" Leon called from across a bridge. And how long had that cannon been there?

I quickly pulled myself together and we both ran to where the agent was standing.

"Okay, I'm about to fire this thing and blow down that door. I want you girls over here just in case I miss."

We nodded and stood behind him. A split second later, there was an ear-shattering _Boom!_ followed by a crashing sound. Ashley and I looked up from covering out ears to find that Leon had blasted open the front gate.

"I'm sure the owner of this dump won't be too pleased to find out that you blasted his door down with some rusty old cannon."

"Yeah, well, he'll just have to deal with it." He looked down at me and grinned as he said this, making my face turn a deep shade of red. I tried to shake that image out of my head as we all began walking over to the gaping hole in the stone wall.


	24. Chapter 24

"Hey, a Merchant!" I shouted as soon as we had turned the corner. "Wait…" I stopped dead in my tracks, obviously not as excited as I was two seconds ago. "Why didn't he just let us in?"

Once again, Leon rolled his eyes – a move that I was beginning to get tired of.

"Come on, let's go." The blonde man said, after he finished his trading with the Merchant.

As soon as we stepped through door to our left, Leon's transmitter went off.

"Leon, where's your current location?" A voice that I recognized as the one and only Ingrid Hunnigan spoke.

"We decided to lay low in a castle, but it looks like it was a bad move." He informed the woman whom I was still angry with.

"Meaning?"

"Well, it appears that this castle's also connected with the Los Illuminados. They must not get many visitors here, 'cause they're giving us one hell of a welcome." He explained.

"Sounds bad. I have an idea Leon, I need you to…" She cut off abruptly.

"What? Repeat Hunnigan…" When he didn't get a response, he shook the device, trying to get a better signal I guessed, but to no avail. "Great, Just my luck…"

"What happened?" I asked.

"The transmission got cut off…" Leon said in a dark tone as he put the device back in its place.

"Is that bad?" Ashley asked.

"Well, it definitely isn't good."

Before anyone could say anything else, my eyes had already begun to absorb everything in the room.

It was square and made of white stone – maybe marble, with a table in the middle of it with what looked like worn out diaries and a box of shotgun shells on it. There was a staircase to the left, and in the corner there was a sword made of platinum placed in a golden frame.

"Leon," Said man looked over at me. "Why is there a silver sword in a gold case?"

"How should I know?" He replied as if my confusion meant nothing.

I crossed my arms, eyeing the mysterious sword. For some reason, it really ticked me off. But maybe that was just my OCD coming into play.

Ashley and I stood in place while Leon went upstairs and did his thing. As soon as he stepped off the top step though, there were the sounds of gunshots and Leon making his super awesome "_Hiya!" _sound as he kicked a zealot in the face. We knew he didn't need our help. From the sounds of it, there were only two or three of them up there-

And then the door we came through opened and in came about twelve of those freaks all at once. It completely caught us off guard, and one of the creepy men grabbed me and threw me over his shoulder, and began walking away with me back to the door.

I couldn't help but scream at the top of my lungs out of surprise, and it was a good thing the agent was already half way down the stairs at the time because before the guy could leave with me, Leon shot his legs and we both fell down to the cool, marble floor. Good thing I had that cloaked freak to break my fall.

I stood up and dusted myself off. Looking up at Leon, I smiled and said, "Thanks, I owe you one."

He scoffed, but then smiled as he shot a man in the face. "Yeah, more like thirty."

This time I was the one to roll my eyes as I continued shooting the men. After a while, everyone stopped emerging from the rusty door and things were quite again. Well, as quite as they could be with Ashley and I in the room.

"I just don't get why-"

"Would you just drop it, Emily? It's not important!"

"Girls…" Leon said from beside the stairs, but Ashley and I were too busy bickering to hear him.

"I just have this feeling that—!"

"It doesn't matter!"

"Girls…!" He spoke a little more loudly, but still not quite enough.

"If you would just—!"

"No!"

"GIRLS!" That got out attention; we both shut up immediately. "Would you stop arguing for two seconds?"

We both had ashamed looks on our faces, and he continued. "Emily, I'm gonna let you do whatever it is you wanna do, 'cause honestly I got nothing at this point. If you think it might do something, you go right on ahead and try it."

My smile stretched all the way across my face. "Be right back."

I quickly turned around and dashed down the stone stairs making little _pitter-patter_ noises as I went. As soon as I rounded the corner I headed straight for the sword and grabbed it off its spot on the wall. It was heavier than I thought, but nothing too crazy.

"You okay down there?" I heard Leon yell.

"Ye-yeah! I'm fine! It's just… _really_ heavy." I struggled with the sword while walking up the steps, and Leon quickly came to the rescue. Thirty-one.

They both stared at me as I un-mounted a second sword on the top floor (this one was gold in a platinum case) and replaced it with the first. Again, Leon helped me carry the heavy sword down the steps, but, hey, I wasn't complaining. If a hot, muscular blonde man offers you help, you'd have to be put in a psychiatric ward if you turn him down.

When we placed the golden sword in the empty spot, the sound of something heavy scraping across the floor filled the room. I quickly ran upstairs, with Leon following closely behind, and stood dumbfounded, looking at the newly exposed door.

Leon laughed. "See? I knew you could do it." I smiled, but that smile quickly faltered when he continued. "But no more arguing, okay? I've got an extreme headache."

"Hmm…" I walked up to the blonde man, and when standing _right_ in front of him, stood on my toes and pressed my hand against his forehead. The heat was almost over whelming. "Leon… y-you're _really_ hot…"

"Uh… thanks?" He said with the biggest smirk on his face I had ever seen.

I quickly stepped down and retracted my hand. "N-no that's not-"

He laughed and Ashley snickered behind me. "I know." He looked down at me and tousled my hair, making the redness in my face grow even deeper. I smiled back at him, and then we all stepped through the rusty door.

It was dark outside, and the stars were shining brightly above our heads.

"I haven't seen this many stars since I was little…" Ashley whispered in wonder.

I was too speechless to say anything, and before Leon could we heard the door we had just come through open. We all quickly took our eyes off of the night sky and turned to see who the intruder was.

"Leon!" A Hispanic voice called.

"Luis?" Leon asked in confusion.

"I've got something for you guys…" Luis quickly rushed up to us and began patting himself down, looking for something. "Wha-… Oh _shit!_ I must have dropped it when I was running away from them!"

"Dropped what?" Ashley asked.

"A drug that will stop your convulsions!" _Stop our what…?_ I thought. We all looked at him like he was crazy and he continued. "Look, I know you're carriers. You've been coughing up blood, right?"

"…Yeah." Leon answered truthfully, glancing over at me. I gave him a sad look and we looked back at the Spaniard.

"And you?" He asked the President's daughter.

"Yes."

"And what about you, Emily?" He turned to me.

"Well… no. I… I haven't yet." I answered, and then continued when I remembered what he had told me back in that room I was trapped in. "But didn't you say-"

"Yes. We don't have much time." He turned around and began walking back to the door.

"Wait! … L-let me come with you." I offered, running after him.

"No. You stay here with Leon. You told me how fond you were of him, anyways." My eyes grew wide. I didn't dare look back at the tall blonde man standing a few feet behind me.

I returned to the original topic. "But Luis, you're all alone, it wouldn't be fair. I have a gun, I can help you."

"Look, Emily. I know you want to help, but I really need to do this on my own. Please, try to understand that."

He looked at me with such care in his eyes. How could I say no?

"Okay…"

I stood still and looked down at the ground. It was stone, duh, the whole castle was. But this time, it had suddenly become very interesting.

Leon and Ashley had both stepped forward when he had begun walking away, so that they were both standing behind me now. One of their hands was rested on my left shoulder as an act of comfort, though I couldn't determine who until he said, "Why are you-"

"It makes me feel better. Let's just leave it at that."

And just like that, Luis Sera was gone.


	25. Chapter 25

"What was that about?" Ashley finally asked, breaking the almost-unbearable, everlasting silence.

"I have _no_ idea." Leon replied.

"Yeah, well…" I said. "I just can't wait until he gets back with that drug. I want to get this thing out of me as soon as I can."

They both nodded. "Don't we all."

I turned around and once again noticed the orange, rust-stained door. "Leon, what's back there?"

He turned around and began walking to it. When he slowly pushed it open, you could see a cloaked man standing in the center of the room. Just then, the thing turned his head and noticed the very handsome man standing in his doorway, and went to go tell his friends about it.

"Wait here." Leon said to Ashley and me. We nodded and stood there, awkwardly, trying to think of something to say.

"So…" I said first. "Do you think you've gotten the hang of shooting your gun?"

The blonde pulled out her gun and began examining it carefully. "I don't know. I think Leon might have to show me how to work it. If we ever get the time, that is."

Suddenly, the image of Leon with his tight, muscular arms wrapped around hers, and holding the gun in her hands flashed in my mind. "Uh… how about I show you?"

"Really?" Her face lit up in a smile.

"Sure! Look, all you have to do is-"

"Hey, I got the key to this door." Leon interrupted, holding a silver key in his hand.

"Leon!" Ashley exclaimed, running up to him. "Do you think you could show me how to work this gun properly?"

Said man chuckled. "Yeah, sure. So you hold it like this…" Just then he wrapped his arms around her and my vision came true. I was filled with envy so strong that I was almost positive my face was turning green. All I could do was stare at the two as Ashley pretended to be clueless, while really, she just wanted to spend more time wrapped in Leon's embrace. I knew what she was up to. (I was probably just over-thinking the situation at the time, but could you blame me?)

I rushed up to the two and snatched the key from Leon's hand and put it in the lock. "After you…" I said critically, looking at the tall blonde man. He seemed rather confused at my actions, but Ashley had an obvious blush on her face; she knew I had caught on to what she was doing.

When we stepped through the doors, I was literally awestruck. I had never seen anything so beautiful in my life. The walls were stone, but not the dirty stone like the other parts of the castle- no, this stone was diamond white, almost a marble, but not quite. The floors were a shiny marble that you could practically see your reflection in, and there was a red carpet going through the center of the room, leading to doors on the other side at _least_ 50 feet long. About half way through the room there was an archway and a balcony facing us on it. We continued walking forward, completely speechless, until Ashley finally spoke up.

"This is… amazing!"

"Tell me about it." Leon replied.

"Who knew there could be something so beautiful in a place so—" Just then I was interrupted by the laughter of what sounded like a child doped up of caffeine. "What was that…?"

We all eyed the room cautiously before continuing forward after a few moments of silence. But just when we were halfway to the balcony, we heard it again, except louder. I looked up at the balcony to see a little boy in a blue Victorian-age suit, laughing maniacally. There were two cloaked figures beside him; one was in a black cloak, the other in red. They both had glowing red eyes, and were twice as tall as the boy.

"Ehehahahahah!" Suddenly, he didn't look much like a boy anymore, as he stepped fully out to the railing of the balcony. He actually looked pretty aged. "…I was starting to wonder when you might notice us." He said.

"Who are you?" Leon demanded, taking a slight step forward.

Without hesitation, the boy/man (I still wasn't quite sure) answered. "_Me amo_ _Ramon Salazar, _the eighth castellan of this magnificent architecture." He seemed quite proud with this last statement. "I have been honored with the prodigious power from the great Lord Saddler… I've been expecting you my brethren's…"

_Brethren's? _I thought.

"No thanks, _bro!_" Our rescuer said, in quite a sarcastic tone, making Ashley giggle beside me.

"My, my, we've got a feisty one." He continued. "If you care for your own well-being, I suggest you surrender yourself and simply… become our hostage." My eyes grew wide, along with Ashley's, while Leon's took on a look of confusion. "Or Mr. Scott, you can give us the girls, because you're not worth a penny I'm afraid… You can die." He then turned around and vanished behind the blue curtains. It was one of those '_What the hell just happened?'_ moments.

"I'm never turning into one of them, never!" Ashley spoke up.

"Got that right," Leon turned to her. "We'll find a cure."

"But how can you be so sure?" I pondered aloud. I knew it was probably a bad idea to say it, but someone had to ask. "What if there _isn't _a cure?"

He thought about this for a moment, before saying, "There has to be. Whatever Luis went looking for, that must be it. He said it would stop growth of this thing."

"Yeah." Ashley said, placing a comforting hand on my shoulder. "We got ourselves into this, we can get ourselves out."

I smiled and nodded and we kept walking across the room. Suddenly, when we got to the archway in the middle, a wall rose up from the floor blocking our path. There was a blue rectangle with carvings of an animal and a big hole that looked as though something had to be placed in it.

"I wonder what this is for…" I said, inspecting the oddly shaped hole.

"I don't know," Leon said. "But we obviously can't go this way now. Come on."

We spotted a door to our right and decided to go through it.

This room wasn't as big as the one we were just in, I guess you could call that a lobby. No, it was about half the size of it. Everything was the ugly stone color again, and there were two pillars in the right side of the room, and on the left wall there were large round holes cut out, serving as windows to a lower area that I couldn't see too well. There was hallway at the end of the room, and a roaring noise was coming from it.

We all began walking forward, to the entryway, but I slowly stopped and took a look at my surroundings. "This place could use some cleaning." I stated.

Leon scoffed and said "With a place this big, I can't really blame that guy for not wanting to clean everything."

"But wouldn't he have a butler or a maid or something?" I asked.

"Yeah, maybe… but whoever it is, they need to be fired."

I laughed briefly before placing my hands on my hips, and standing in a sort of '_I'm totally awesome'_ pose. "I'm gonna have a castle like this one day. Except, you know… without all the freaky dudes."

"Don't you have to be royalty to have a castle?" Leon questioned, obviously not taking me seriously.

"Exactly!" I exclaimed excitedly. "One day I'm going to be a queen!"

The blonde man half laughed, half snorted. "Queen? Isn't that an inherited title?"

"Well... yeah, but…" I trailed off.

He laughed. "Didn't think that one out too much, did you?" I shook my head. "Well, unless your parents were King and Queen then—…" He stopped mid-sentence, realizing what he had just said. "I-I'm sorry… I didn't mean—…"

"No, it's fine." I sighed. "I guess it's time I tell you what happened, huh?" My voice grew shaky, and suddenly the wrinkles in my shirt became oh-so interesting.

"You don't have to—…"

"No, I do… I keep bringing it up, and making excuses for it… you can't tell me you don't want to know what happened." I took his silence as a yes.

Just then, Ashley appeared from around the corner of the entryway. I hadn't even noticed she was gone.

"That way is blocked off by fire-breathing horses, but I found this key on a really big painting. I think it goes to that door." She held up a silver key. "Hey… what's wrong?" She approached the middle of the room with caution where Leon and I were standing.

"Nothing." Leon said quickly.

"It's not _nothing_." I argued, and when Ashley gave me a confused look I continued. "I was about to tell him what happened with my parents."

"O-oh… well, I can go if you want…"

"No. You need to hear this too."

_Muahaha... cliff hangers. Gotta love 'em. But sorry folks, looks like this is all I have time for today! Tune in next time to find out what happened to Emily's parents. (Or you could just go and read the ori-) No, that's cheating! But anyways..._

_I got a review from __**Lollipop Lolli **__asking if I'm going to to an updated version of the sequel to this. Well? What do you guys think? It's not really up to me. I don't want to waste my time writing something that no one's going to read, you know? So tell me in that little review box down there if you want me to update 'It's Only Just Begun' and I may or may not write another story in addition to that one... who knows?_

_Anyways, thank you guys for reading and I'll be back tomorrow with more. See you guys later~_


	26. Chapter 26

_Sorry for such a depressing chapter, folks. There's happier ones on the way! Enjoy!_

It was cold. That was the only thing going through my mind as my parents and I hiked through the woods on our once-a-year vacation to Europe. It was my turn to pick where we went, so I chose Spain. But boy, was that a mistake; it was only around forty to fifty degrees every day. The only reason I had chosen Spain was because I spoke fluently in Spanish, even though my parents didn't. We'd already been everywhere else I had wished to go.

I grunted as I tripped over a rock in the grass and face planted into the hard dirt. "Can we just go home?" I begged desperately.

My father chuckled as he helped me up. "Hey, it was your idea to come here."

I dusted off my shirt. "I know, but did we have to go hiking? It's _so_ cold."

"Well, then you should have worn pants." Scolded my mother, so I rolled my eyes.

Don't get me wrong, I loved my mom. She was one of the funniest people I knew, she just had this habit of picking out all the little things I did wrong. Take me wearing shorts on a forty-degrees hiking trip for example.

"We've been out here for _hours_!" I complained again.

My mom sighed and turned to my dad. "James, maybe she's right. It is getting pretty cold… maybe we should turn back."

"Alright…" He agreed, and we turned around and began walking back the way we came… or so we thought.

…

"I thought you said you knew where to go?" My mother asked my father.

"Me? You're the one who said the hotel was _east_!"

"No, I said we've been walking east, the hotel was _west_!"

"S-so we're lost?!" I panicked.

"No." "Yes." They answered at the same time. Now you know where I got it from.

My mother grunted in frustration. "Perfect, this is _just_ perfect. We're over four-_thousand_ miles away from home, and we're lost!"

"Stay calm, Mary. We're going to get home. If we just keep walking straight, we're bound to find a road somewhere."

"But that could be miles from here, dad!"

He didn't really answer me, just grabbed the two extra bottles of water and gave them to my mother and me. Then he turned around and continued walking.

About thirty-minutes later, more than half of my water was gone. I was suddenly reminded of that movie _The Blair Witch Project_ and immediately shook it out of my mind. That movie was proven fake; nothing like that could ever happen. Just then, we spotted four men standing on top of a slight hill.

My father sighed in relief. "Finally… Hey!" He shouted. "Hey, down here!"

All of the men turned to look at us, and then one of them raised their arm, pointing, and yelling the words "_Un forastero_!" Which I translated to "An outsider!"

"Uh… dad…" I tried to warn him, but he didn't listen to me.

"Hey, fellas. We're kinda lost, so could you point us the way to the nearest town?" My oblivious father walked up to the men, as they were running down the hill towards us.

When the men we're almost at the bottom, I stepped forward a tiny bit. "Eh… _Lo siento… Mi padre no habla españo_—…"

Just then, one of the men pulled out an axe and swung it, slashing my father across the face. Blood was dripping form the blade and my eyes grew wide. Did that really just happen?

"Dad!" My mother and I rushed to aid my wounded father, when one of them grabbed her and threw her onto the ground. My father shoved me away from the crowd of hostile men while desperately trying to help my mom.

I fell to the ground with a loud grunt, alerting a few of the men.

Now one of them was coming at me with a pitchfork, while the other three were kicking and stabbing my parents. My brain didn't have time to fully process what was going on. I was scared. The two people in the world that I loved the most were getting the life beaten out of them, and I was next. When the man lunged at me, I quickly jumped out of the way. Then while he was distracted, I ran up behind him and kicked him in the back of the knees, knocking him down.

Next thing I knew, I had the pitchfork in my hands. My mind was hazy and my limbs moved on their own. I heard grunts and didn't stay to watch as blood pooled out of one man after the other.

When all was done, I slowly walked up to where my parents' bodies lay.

"M-mom… Dad…?"

It was silent, and I was almost positive they were both dead, until I heard a short gasp coming from my mother. I ran up to her quickly. Her orange shirt was almost completely drenched in blood, and there were multiple holes in it, indicating she was stabbed several times.

"M-Mom…"

I heard you were supposed to apply pressure to wounds, but which one should I choose? I found the biggest one I could, and quickly pressed my hands desperately over the hole, but blood kept seeping out, through my fingers. I didn't know what to do. She was always the one to tend my cuts and scrapes; I never imagined I would be in any sort of situation like this.

"Mom… please…" But it was too late. Her body laid cold and stiff.


	27. Chapter 27

Everyone was quiet. I guess they didn't know what to say to something as horrible as that. Breaking the silence, a small sniffle came from Ashley. Was she crying? If she was, I couldn't blame her. My eyes had begun to water as well, but tried my best to hold back my tears. I had cried enough that day, I didn't want to seem like any more of a wimp than I already was.

Suddenly, I felt someone's body wrap its self around mine: it was Leon. "It's okay…" he whispered while softly caressing the back of my head.

That pretty much did it. I was bawling into his chest, and most likely getting tear stains all over his shirt.

"How could they have been so defenseless…?" I sobbed. Leon didn't answer; he just made soothing noises, and kept comforting me.

Then, I felt Ashley join the hug too, as she wrapped her arms around the two of us. We stayed like that for a while.

…

"You found this key where exactly…?" I asked Ashley. We were standing in front of a blue door that was shut securely. Leon guessed that it was probably a prison, and who was I to argue with him? If it was a prison, though, it was rather small. It probably only held a few people.

"I already told you, in that room back there. It was hanging on some painting."

"That's a little odd." Leon stated and the blonde shrugged her shoulders. "You girls wait here."

"_Again?_" I complained.

"I have a bad feeling about this…" I knew better than to argue with him. His intuitions about things like that were usually right.

He put the key in the hole and the door quickly rose up, startling all three of us. Then, Leon began slowly descending down the stairs. To get a better view of the area, Ashley and I ran over to the windows/holes and peered over the side. The area was small, and there was a cage on the right wall. Looking further in, I saw what looked like a big man with-

"Are those _claws?_" Ashley gasped.

"Y-yeah… I think so…"

Leon slowly approached the bars of the cage holding the clawed man, when he turned to us and held a finger to his lips as a warning: _do not make a sound. _Ashley and I nodded in fear as he continued to timidly walk towards the cage door.

Suddenly the man burst out of his chains with a grunt, and I had to quickly cover my mouth to stifle a scream. As the prisoner walked slowly towards our rescuer, I noticed two things. One: There was this freakishly large _parasite_ on its back, and two: it looked as though he was _sniffing_ the air. He kept laughing manically, walking slowly across the room, and I couldn't help but wonder: _Why doesn't he just kill him?_ I leaned in through the window once again and gasped when I got a good look at his face; his eyes were sewn shut. I whispered my discovery to the blonde beside me and her eyes grew wide with excitement.

"Maybe we can help him!" Ashley whispered.

"How?"

"Well did you see how Leon shot that thing on its back when he was turned away?"

I nodded.

"Well maybe we can distract him long enough for Leon to shoot him again."

My face matched hers and I said "Ashley, you are a _genius!_"

Before she had time to say anything I was already shouting out the window. "_HEY JACKASS!"_

The thing turned in my direction, and Leon looked at me with shock and confusion written all over his face.

"Not you, that ugly thing!"

I don't know if it understood English, or was just looking for something to attack, but it automatically started running for the stairs. Leon took aim and fired about a hundred _TMP_ bullets into the parasite, and with a grunt, the thing fell to the floor.

When Leon returned, you could tell he didn't know whether to be proud, angry, or annoyed. Finally, he just laughed.

"That was a stupid thing you did there."

"It worked didn't it?"

Before he had time to answer, there was a shout coming from behind us. We quickly pulled out our guns and began shooting the three men who emerged from the hallway. One of them turned around and began running the other way.

"What's his deal?" I asked rhetorically and then followed him.

As soon as I rounded the corner, I saw the two horses Ashley mentioned, although they weren't '_breathing fire_'. There were three more men: two of them stood behind each horse head with a crossbow, and the other stood in the middle throwing—

"_Look out!"_ Leon quickly grabbed my arm and yanked me out of the way. I have to admit, it did hurt a little. But not as much as it would have if he didn't; the man was throwing _dynamite_, and it exploded right where I was standing.

"Jesus _Christ_…" I said as Leon let go of me.

"You need to be more careful." He said sternly.

"O-okay…"

When we were all calmed down, Ashley looked at the stone horses and huffed.

"I _swear_ there was fire here before!" She insisted.

"Yeah… There was a lever back there; I guess it turned it off."

"Well… guess we need to go now, huh?"

We walked towards the big doors at the end of the hallway, and as soon as we were through them, the only thing that went through my mind was _'Oh shit…'_

_"Matelo!" _There was a group of about eight or ten zealots standing in the middle of an enormous room. There were four fountains, one in each quadrant, and a red carpet running all throughout the room. Towards the back, there were balconies on opposite walls, and the both held a freaky dude with a crossbow. There were also stairways towards the back of the room, leading towards some place we couldn't see from our position, and there were about ten more cloaked men heading straight towards us, while others were coming at us from our sides.

"Leon…" The panic in my voice was clear as I began slowly walking backwards, closer to him. Ashley did the same. Our puny handguns were no match for all these guys.

"You girls stand back." He said as he pulled out a Rocket Launcher…. Wait _WHAT?!_

There was an explosion, and about three fourths of the people in the room were gone now.

"I… wha… _WHERE DID YOU GET THAT?!_" My voice nearly echoed in the nearly empty room.

The man almost attempted a smirked as he replaced the RPG with his shotgun. "Back in that shack when you asked for that Blacktail thing. You weren't even paying attention. I was actually surprised you jumped up for that and not the Rocket Launcher." He said as he was shot-gunning away.

Okay, I was officially confused now.


	28. Chapter 28

One by one (and sometimes two or three), the freaks slowly began dying and the room was finally empty. We had nowhere to go except down one of the staircases that had streams of water running on either side of the steps, and once we did we found a small room. In the two corners in the back were big yellow pressure plates.

"What are those for?" Ashley asked, before I could.

"I don't know… You guys take this one and I'll stand on that one."

We did as we were told and at first nothing happened, but as we listened closer, we could hear the sounds of gears turning.

"… What did we just do?" I asked, only half expecting an answer, which I didn't get.

Ashley and I followed Leon out of the room and, to our surprise, sitting in the middle of the room was a lever. We all looked at each other, dumbstruck.

"… Well who's going to turn it?" Ashley looked at me. "_Seriously?_ I have possibly the _worst_ upper body strength in the history of mankind!"

"That's not necessarily true," she said.

"Whatever, I vote Leon. He has the biggest muscles I've ever seen."

Ashley blushed and looked down at her feet. I didn't realize what I had said until Leon smirked at me and said "Really?"

"I… uh… Well, yeah… I- I guess…" My cheeks flared red and Leon took hold of the handle and began turning it.

Not even a second later, we realized what it did; as soon as he started turning it, what we thought was a wall, slowly began descending down, and revealed itself as a set of stairs to a higher floor.

Ashley and I quickly ran up said stairs and she pointed to something on a high platform, that I didn't see, I was focused on the door in the back of the room, and all the water in front of it.

"Look there's a crank over there!"

Then I looked over and saw a crank on the other side, too. "Maybe we can turn them…?" I suggested to Leon.

"Alright." He said. We walked over to one side of the room and he lifted Ashley up, then me on the other side. Oh God, it was the jumping thing all over again.

Once we were safely up, we immediately began turning the cranks. About two seconds after I started turning, I looked up to see a cloaked freak right in front of my face. As soon as I screamed, his head exploded and my shirt was covered in even more blood. I looked down and saw Leon reloading his gun.

"Thanks!" I shouted, as I began turning the handle again.

"No problem!" He shouted back.

About two minutes later, the turning was over with, and we looked over to see that two stone platforms had risen up out of the water, big enough to jump across to reach the door. I ran up to the edge of the platform I was standing on and before I could, Ashley shouted "_Leon!_", who was currently fending off two guys with shields.

Once he killed them, he walked over to Ashley's side and she jumped into his arms and he gently set her down. My eyes grew wide when he walked over to me and held his arms out.

"You-… you mean…?" I didn't know which to be worried more about, my reddening face, for how much higher up I seemed than before.

"I caught you last time, didn't I?"

I took a deep breath, squeezed my eyes shut, and jumped. It felt like forever until I was in his arms, and once I opened my eyes, he was already setting me down.

I stood there, blinking, trying to remember what just happened. Great, I blanked out the _spilt second_ I was in the hottest guy on the planet's arms. That's something you should cherish, not forget.

"Did he hold you longer? I'm pretty sure he held you longer." Ashley whispered, thinking Leon couldn't hear her.

After a chuckle escaped his lips, I whispered _way_ softer, "I don't even remember what happened, to be honest."

She laughed and then Leon turned to us. "Well are you two going to keep standing there whispering about me, or can we keep going?"

Oops.

The blonde and I acted innocently as we rushed past him. We came up to the platforms and after Leon jumped across he held his arms out for me with an expectant look on his face.

"U-um… I think I can do it by myself this time…"

"Alright," he nodded and stood back. I took a deep breath, and a few steps back before taking a giant leap over to where he was standing. I landed safely, but he caught me by the arms just in case I fell. I looked up at him; his piercing blue eyes were staring right into mine and if I stared back any longer, I would have become light headed. "Um… t-thanks." I attempted.

"No problem." He said, as he smiled and let go of me. I swear, this man had _no_ idea what he could do with just one look.

We walked through the two big doors and were, yet again, mesmerized by what we saw. This room was just about as beautiful as the first, but there were two giant, upside down statues hanging from the ceiling. Yeah, I didn't really get the point of that either. There was another long red carpet leading down to something I couldn't see well from where we were standing.

We continued walking until we saw the merchant standing beside the entryway to a hallway. There wasn't a door at the end of it; the door was to the right. Instead, there were six suspicious looking holes in the wall. I tried not to pay too much attention to them, and turned back to the masked man.

"So how much was that Blacktail, again?" I asked, completely interrupting his and Leon's bargain.

He chuckled. "Twenty-four thousand, Stranga."

I emptied my pockets; six Spinels, and about thirteen thousand pesetas. "_YES!_" I exclaimed. I had enough for the gun, plus a thousand left over. I threw everything I had at the man, including the extra thousand, and held out my hands pleading "Gimmie gimmie gimmie gimmie gimmie gimmie…"

My two companions watched me with curiosity. "Here ya go, Stranga…" He gently placed them in my hands, and I gaped at it in awe… for about a second.

"_OH MY GOD I FINALLY HAVE IT!_" I was literally jumping up and down in place. Without thinking, I threw my arms around the first person I saw, which was Ashley. They both laughed.

"Is that gun really all that great?" Leon asked.

I quickly let go and turned to face him. "_That_ great? It's amazing! When fully upgraded, it has a reload speed of point-twenty-seven seconds!"

"Damn. That is a nice gun." He stated.

"I know right?!"

After we sold my old gun, we continued walking down the hallway, and just as we were about to enter the door my enthusiasm came to an abrupt halt; I started coughing, completely unable to stop. There was this pain in my chest and it was completely unbearable. It was like coughing soothed it just a bit, but every cough made it burn even worse.

"Hey… you okay?" Leon asked me considerately.

I wasn't focusing on him; I was too distracted by the amount of blood in my hands. I never knew a person could cough up that much… my hands were drenched. Luis said the first sign of the parasite eggs hatching was coughing up blood… Oh god.

My eyes grew wide. "Emily…?"

"_No!_" I don't know what came over me. I shoved Leon away and began sprinting forward. I didn't know what I was running to or from, I was just running and it hurt.

"Emily, _wait!_" He shouted, but I kept running. Then all of the sudden spikes shot out of the floor and I stepped back just in time. I turned around and kept running, as more spikes shot up.

Finally, I reached the wall. My chest was aching and I just needed to breathe—

Then before I knew it, bars shot out from the holes in the wall, pinning me against it.

"Emily!"

I barely had time to say anything before the wall spun around, placing me in a new room.

"Don't worry; I'll get there as soon as I can!" I heard Leon shout from the other side.

"I-I'm sorry!" I shouted back, but I wasn't sure if he could hear me.


	29. Chapter 29

_Short chapter is short. Sorry guys, only one more after this for today!_

It had been _hours_ since I last saw Leon. All I could think about was him and how I shoved him away like that… what was I thinking? All he wanted to do was comfort me, and I had to act like a five-year-old and run away from him. The parasite must have been messing with my brain, because no sane person would ever run away from someone as nice as him; that's just common sense.

I wished I could tell him how sorry I was— I wasn't sure if he had heard me the last time, but even if he did, I wanted to tell him in person. I didn't know if he would find me… It never occurred to me until then that he might not be able to, and if he didn't what would happen? Would I be stuck there until I died, or would Salazar or Saddler come and take me away?

Before my thoughts could go any farther, I heard a door from the upper floor open. Well, it wasn't much of a 'floor', more like a balcony that wrapped all the way around the room, looking down onto the floor I was on. I couldn't see who it was from the angle it was at (exactly to the left of me), but I could hear two pairs of soft footsteps. I stayed quiet and still. There was a chance it could be Leon and Ashley, but an even higher chance it was Salazar's minion freaks.

Suddenly, the door opened again and I heard a voice, thick with a Hispanic accent, and I knew immediately who it was.

He said, "Leon," So Leon _was_ there!

I opened my mouth to yell out, and let him know I was down there, but Luis interrupted me. "I got it!" Suddenly all motion stopped. Confused, I listened more carefully for what was going on and then I heard Luis screaming in pain.

My eyes grew wide. Did Leon hurt him?! No, that's not-

My question was quickly answered when the agent shouted "Luis!" as if he wanted to help, but he couldn't. Ashley's startled gasp was barely audible next to him.

Out came more cries of pain, and just when I thought I couldn't take any more of it, there was a loud thump, and then a thick, creepy voice said "Now that I have the Sample, you serve me no purpose." It was Saddler.

My eyes were even wider now (if that was even possible) and I was filled with an outrageous amount of fury. Leon wasn't too pleased about this either. "Saddler!" He shouted.

"My boy, Salazar, will make sure _you_ follow the same fate!" Saddler said and, from the sounds of it, left.

I couldn't hear much more after that. I hung my head as a few tears threatened to spill down my face, but I was through with crying. Too many horrible, _horrible_ things had happened to me in a span of only a few days and I was tired of it. It was then that I realized that if I wanted to get something done, if I wanted to stop suffering, I was going to have to stop crying and do something about it.

A few seconds later Leon mumbled something to Ashley that I couldn't hear, but as soon as they were in my line of sight I shouted up to them and saw the relief wash over their faces.

As soon as he looked down, he shouted back. "Don't move!"

I obeyed as he pulled out his rifle and began shooting the bars off. To my absolute surprise, they broke and after three shots I was freed.

"You better watch where you aim that thing, Leon." I said with a small wink that I wasn't sure if he could see.

The man just stood there smiling, and I smiled back. I could see Ashley standing off to the side by the door, but she looked rather sad and depressed, and, even though I knew, I didn't want to think about why.

Before anybody could say anything else, a door to my right opened and out came a group of the cloaked freaks.

"I got it!" I shouted to Leon and pulled out my gun. I aimed for the closest guys face and- _click!_

"What the hell?" I shook my gun as if it would solve the problem and pulled the trigger about eight more times; nothing.

"I'm out of ammo!" I hollered to the man above me.

"Shit… alright! I'll cover you, just stay back!"

I did as I was told, and every time one of them got too close, Leon would shoot their head off. Eventually they were all gone and I ran for the nearest door, which happened to be locked.

"Leon?" I shouted up to the man while rattling the door handle.

"Yeah?" he answered.

"The door may or may not be locked…"

"Uh… I think the red one dropped a key!" He shouted back, and he was right. I ran over to where the guy in the red cloak was killed and there lay a shiny silver key.

"Kay, I got it!" I ran up to the door, unlocked it, and said "I'll try to find my way back… wait for me okay?"

"You got it." He said, and I opened the door.


	30. Chapter 30

_Hey guys, I'm back! Sorry for such a long wait I just lost interest in writing for a while but I re-read bits and pieces of FFOL and IOJB yesterday and it reminded me how fun writing was, and you guys's reviews were also very very lovely. I love hearing how you all like my stories and what not and I'll try and figure out something new to write soon. Any ideas? How would you guys feel about another RE fic with Leon and Emily? Or something completely unrelated to this series would be fine too. I've also been wanting to experiment with writing a novel or something as well. So we'll see how that turns out. Anyways! Here are the next 10 or so chapters to make up for my absence. I really am so so sorry! I hope you like them. Enjoy~_

The room was dark, and all I could see was a faint light coming from the end of a hallway in front of me. I looked around for a table or something, when I saw a typewriter and an object sitting next to it. I slowly walked up to it and saw a flashlight. Quickly snatching it up and turning it on, it appeared as if there were fresh batteries in it, because the light was bright. There was a strap on it to place on a belt, and that's exactly what I did. After doing a little mental happy dance, I proceeded down the hallway, and stopped when I saw someone standing in the room it led to. Instinctively, I reached for my gun before realizing I had no bullets.

"_Aii esta…_" The thing said and it slowly began walking towards me.

I had nowhere to run. Turning around and heading back to Leon would be useless, so I just ran. I sprinted straight past the thing. I figured since they were usually slow, I'd have no problem getting past him, and I didn't. I saw a few book cases and tables, and two of the tables had lanterns on them. My eyes grew wide and I suddenly got an idea. I ran over to the closest table that had a lantern on it, picked it up, and chucked it at the guy. The lamp immediately burst into flames and after it died out, he began dissolving into the floor as they usually do when they die.

"HAH!" I laughed, sticking my tongue out at the spot where the body once lay.

I turned back around and looked for a door. Instead, there were bars blocking the path to the next room, and a crank behind one of the tables. I casually hopped over said table and began turning the crank. It was hard to turn at first, but after I loosened it up a bit it took about fifteen more turns before the bars were completely raised off the floor. I hopped back over the table and was surprised when I saw another cloaked freak in the next room. Spotting another lantern on a table in the back of the room, I sprinted for it. He was down before he could even finish saying "_Mátelo!" _There were two more cranks on the walls and I hurried to turn them. One pulled back the vertical bars, and the other horizontal that was finished, I ran straight for the door in front of me.

"Great…" I said aloud to myself. There were bars covering every path to get to the door on the other side of the room. But beside all the bars, there were pillars with gaps in between them big enough for a person to fit through standing on a wall almost as tall as me. I figured I could climb up the wall and squeeze through them and I did. Once I was standing in the middle of the room, I noticed a square shaped stone placed on the mantel piece above the fireplace. Unaware of its purpose, I felt the urge to pull it off and keep it, something about the tablet felt important. I climbed the wall again and quickly left through the door.

This hallway was _dark_. I could barely see anywhere my flashlight wasn't pointed. Slowly, I crept forward, ready for anything to jump out and scare me as I rounded corner after corner. Finally, the last part of the hallway was lit well enough that I didn't need my flashlight, but the room it lead too was even darker than the hallway. I couldn't see much in it, just a few random suits of armor, and a little dais standing in the middle of room. On it were eight squares, and an empty slot in the middle. It kind of reminded me of those puzzles I could never figure out as a kid… that's where I got the idea to try and rearrange them.

Sighing and thinking I would never figure it out, I just started randomly moving the pieces around. I started with the middle left piece, and moved it to the center. Then, I moved the bottom left corner up, and followed order, moving them around clockwise. After I moved the pieces nine more times, I was shocked at what I saw; the puzzle was solved, and you could see an actual picture in it. That was the very first time I ever solved one of those. But there was still a piece missing.

I pulled out the stone tablet from my back pocket and looked at it: it was exactly the right size and shape, and looked like it would complete the picture. I placed it in the slot carefully, and suddenly a door on the wall in front of me rose up.

"… I DID IT!" I exclaimed, but then remembered I had no one to share my joy with. It still didn't wipe the smile off my face, though.

I walked through the doorway and shined my flashlight on everything in the room. There was no door, making me wonder what the point of making it so hard to get in there was, when suddenly I saw a flash. My flashlight was shining on something in the back of the room. I walked over to it and examined it carefully. There was the upper part of a knight suit sitting on top of a fireplace, with something shiny and circular embedded in its chest. It was about the size of my palm, and I carefully plucked it out, then nearly dropping it when I heard the door I had come through slam shut and the part of the wall the armor was leaning up against flipped around and revealed a blue and gold chest. I opened the chest and inside it was a blue piece of stone shaped like an animals hind legs, and a serpent for its tail.

As soon as I picked it up, the door rose again and I heard clanging coming from the next room. As I moved closer, it kept getting louder and louder. When I reached the door, I shined my flashlight into my room and saw that the suits of armor were_ moving!_ They had somehow sprang to life, and were now walking towards me wielding axes as big as my face, on poles about as tall as me. Suddenly the closest one stopped and began raising this axe. I screamed loudly, and dropped my flashlight as I ran around them and back out into the hallway. I could hear them following me, and I kept running. Then I remembered seeing more suits of armor in the hallways and began sprinting even faster. Every time I passed one, I would jump out of the way just before it sliced me in half, and then crumpled to the floor. Finally I reached the room with the pillars. I jumped over the wall and through them in record time, before stopping dead in my tracks in front of the door; there was another suit or armor. I carefully backed up and stepped to the right, hopping it wouldn't sense me there, but it did. Right as it swung its axe down, I fell on my ass, sure to leave a bruise. Once the thing had crumpled, I bolted out of the door.

Back in the area after the room with the second zealot in it, I stopped to catch my breath. My heart was pounding. When I could finally breathe normal again, I noticed a blue door to my right that I hadn't seen before. I slowly prodded it open with my gun, ready to attack the next person who dared to try and mess with me. Even though it was empty, I figured I could still do some pretty serious damage if I hit someone upside the head with it.

There was no one in the room, only a large painting on the back wall and some sort of bird-bath-looking thing in front of it, with a pole coming out of its side. But as I got closer, I realized it wasn't a birdbath, it was another dais, this one circle shaped, and you used the bar to turn it. I took a closer look and saw a hole in the center about as big as my palm. Immediately after I placed the round insignia I had gotten from the top half of the armor, the wall with the painting rose up to reveal a ladder. After eagerly climbing up it, I bolted straight down the long hallway, running as fast as I could, hoping the next door I walked through would lead me to Leon.

I took two rights and a left before I came up to a door. Something about it just seemed… right. Like Leon would be waiting there for me after I opened it. I reached my hand up and turned the lock. I slowly pushed the door open and looked up; a blonde man was nervously pacing back and forth in front of me.

"Leon!" I exclaimed. I had so much excitement built up in me at that moment, I ran up and glomped the man. Not the kind where you fall to the floor, but I was hugging him tighter than I'd ever hugged anyone else before in my life.

He was laughing. "You did good…" he said as I buried my face in his chest.

I slowly pulled away after another second. "I'm… sorry for… well yeah…" I said, looking down at my shoes.

"Hey, don't worry about it."

"I was so worried about you!" Ashley ran up.

"Well there wasn't much to worry about." I smiled, and then continued. "Unless you count the giant suits of armor that kept trying to cut me in half… I'm not even joking." I said after seeing the confused looks on their faces.

Leon shook his head. "Well, come on. Let's move on." He said that with such a big smile on his face, it was hard not to smile back.

Then, suddenly his walkie-talkie thing went off. I thought that didn't work?

"Aww… what a touching moment we have here…" I heard Salazar speaking from the other end.

"All spoiled thanks to your interruption." Leon replied, making my face turn a deep shade of red. "Why don't you just do us all a favor and leave before the audience gets pissed off?"

The man on the other end laughed. "You're nothing but an extra in my script, so don't get too carried away. Your biggest scene is over."

"I don't ever remember being a part of your crappy script." Leon replied sarcastically. I was in awe at how awesome his comebacks were.

"Well then, why don't you show me what a first-class script is like; through your own actions." And with that, he hung up.

"What… the hell." I said. "Who the hell is that guy, anyway?"

"You were there. He owns this place." Leon said.

"Yeah but he thinks he's such a badass! Compared to a cat, maybe. But compared to you? He's gotta be smoking some pretty serious stuff."

Ashley full out guffawed and Leon shrugged. "You know, I'm not as awesome as you think I am." He said.

I scoffed. "You keep telling yourself that, cowboy." I said while patting his chest as I walked past him. Ashley followed me, still giggling, and Leon followed too, after a short laugh.


	31. Chapter 31

After stepping through big, golden, double-doors to the left, we all stared down in shock at the magma filled chasm below us.

"Wait here." Leon said after stepping on a _very_ small platform with giant wheels.

"Wait, you're actually going _across_ that thing?! Are you insane?!" I hollered.

"I have to agree with her on this one…" Ashley said.

"See? It's too dangerous, Leon."

"I'll be fine girls. Just stay here. I promise I'll come back."

"What have I told you about promising things like that?" We locked eyes for a second, before he sighed and looked away.

"Fine. I'll _try my best_ to come back, okay? If I'm not back in ten minutes, then you can come looking for me or whatever. But for now, just _stay here_."

Ashley and I nodded and a few seconds later, he was gone.

I turned to her tentatively. "S-so… what happened while I was gone?"

Her eyes got wide and she suddenly seemed to have enough energy for the both of us. "Oh my god, it was _so_ freaky! First there were these _BUG_ things, and then there were these big axe things swinging from the ceiling! Oh! And then after that, there was this huge freaky maze, and these dogs that had these weird _tentacle_ things coming out of their _backs!_" I laughed at her explanations. "Oh, and then there was this woman in a red dress—"

"Wait," I interrupted. "Who is this '_woman_'?"

Ashley rolled her eyes. "Well, if you wouldn't have interrupted me like that, I would have gotten to that part!" I motioned for her to continue. "Anyways, she was some Asian chick. She was all '_Leon… long time no see…'_ Like she was trying to seduce him or something. After that Leon tossed me a whole bunch of money and told me to go upgrade my gun. You will not be-_lieve_ the firepower on this thing now!"

"So you didn't even try to listen or anything?!"

She snapped her head up in confusion. "What? No… why would I?"

I face-palmed. "Ashley, they could've been having _SEX_ for all you know!"

"Ew, gross! I don't want to think of Leon like that!" She complained.

"Ash, he's like twenty-something years old. He's had to've at least done it _once_."

She quickly plugged her ears. "Shh-shh-shh-shh-shh-shh-shhh… I can't _hear you."_

"… What, do you want me to say '_Aye, aye, Captain!'_ or something?"

She took her fingers out of her ears. "Just… don't say any more stuff like that. It makes me feel like a pervert or something…"

I laughed. "Hah. Okie dokie, then."

Just then, Leon emerged from the door on the other side of the chasm and made his way back to us. When he did, he chuckled and said, "See, that wasn't so bad, was it?"

I completely ignored what he said. "Are you a virgin?" I asked, nonchalantly.

It took him about two seconds before he fully processed what I had asked him. "… _What?!_?" he yelled.

"Jeez, calm down. It was just a question." I said, rubbing my ear because it was _that_ loud.

"Wh-… _calm down?!_ Y-you're only _seventeen!_ You shouldn't even be _thinking_ about this stuff right now!"

I laughed probably louder than necessary. "Are you kidding me?! I know at least four pregnant girls in my grade alone!"

"That's not the point. Yo-you just shouldn't be asking that kind of stuff." He kept stuttering, and if I didn't know better, I would've said he was blushing too. "What on earth brought this up?!"

Mine and Ashley's faces turned beet red and we began backing up, failing horribly at playing innocent. "Uh-um, _nothing!_ Nothing at all! D-don't worry about it…" We gave nervous laughs and ignored the 'what-the-hell' look he was giving us.

"…Uh huh…" He said. "Well… anyways… I found the Lion thing… Now all we need is the Serpent and we can get out of here."

Wait… Serpent? I quickly reached into my back pocket and pulled out the 'legs and snake tail' stone found back in the room with the knights and handed it to Leon. "Here you go."

"Where'd you find this?" He asked, astonished.

"Back in the room with the knights before they turned all alive and stuff." I said casually.

"Well, this is it then! Come on."

We all three walked to our left and stood in front of a strange, out of place trolley. It was blue and there were red-colored velvet seats on each side.

"Sh-should we get on?" Ashley asks, looking very tentative.

"I don't see why not." Leon says as he steps on and sits down. Ashley sits on the opposite side of him, leaving me with a huge dilemma; sit next to Leon, or sit next to Ashley? I decide to take the latter and avoid a lot of awkward silences.

As soon as the door shut, the trolley began moving. It wasn't very fast, but fast enough.

"So…" I said awkwardly. No one said anything. "You never answered my question, Leon." I said, remembering our earlier conversation.

He sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Why do you want to know?"

"I dunno… just _curious_." I said in a sort of sing-song voice.

"Well frankly, I don't know if that's any of your business."

Ashley shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

"Is that a no?!" I asked, getting childish-ly excited.

"I'm not saying anything."

I turned to Ashley. "Hah! I told you!"

Ashley turned away, her face redder than mine has ever been, and Leon snapped his head up. "Wait, what?!"

"Um… Nothing." I said.

Leon just sighed again. "I swear… the conversations you two have when I'm gone…"

I smiled. "_You know you love us…_" Another sing-song voice.

He just laughed and didn't deny it; mine and Ashley's faces just about matched the color of the seats.


	32. Chapter 32

As soon as we stepped off the trolley, we headed straight for a familiar looking blue door. After unlocking it and stepping to the other side, we realized it was the locked door in the lobby that we couldn't go through. We stepped up to the wall with the indents for the stones and carefully placed them. After the last one was in place, the wall rose up, and revealed two big doors that we took the liberty of entering.

There was another trolley ride in front of us, and I couldn't help but think about Salazar when he escaped through here a few hours ago. It didn't surprise me that the little guy ran off to ride roller-coasters right after we first met him. I could almost picture him giddy with excitement as he got on, the two giant robed monsters behind him sighing and rolling their horrible mutant eyes as it was the twelfth time that day they had to go through that.

I shook the random thoughts out of my head as the ride began moving. No one really said anything, I just kept stealing glances at Leon every now and then and when he would look back I'd blush and look away. God, it was like I was in third-grade, what was wrong with me?

The ride slowly came to a stop and we stepped out of the trolley. We exited the only door in the room, and looked around in curiosity. This room was decorated like a medieval castle (which I guess it was), and there were many different ways we could go. There was a door to our left, a long hallway with a door to the right, a door to our immediate right, and another long corridor straight ahead.

"Which way do we go first?" I asked.

"Straight?" Ashley suggested, and so we went.

We ended up in a long, drafty hallway with large open windows blowing in the cool breeze. I shivered, wishing I hadn't given up Leon's jacket back in the village. We walked to the doors at the end of the hallway, but there were bars in front of them. There were two statues of a man and woman on either side of the doors.

"What do we do now?" I asked as Leon examined the statues.

"A Toast to our Royal Majesty…" He read aloud.

"It says the same thing on this one." Ashley pointed out.

"What, do we have to find something to give to them or something?"

"I guess… Only one way to find out…" The agent said and we turned around and walked back.

We decided to go right this time, taking the long hallway with the door at the end, but as soon as I saw the knights lined up in rows on the side of a red carpet leading down the hallway, I screamed. Loud.

"What the hell?!" Leon asked, frightened.

"I-I'm sorry… It's just... the knights…" I said the last two words in a barely audible whisper.

"They don't look very alive to me." Ashley smart-mouthed and I glared at her.

"Well those horses didn't appear very capable to breath fire, either."

"Alright, calm down." Leon said. "I'll go first and we'll see what happens."

He began walking down the carpet and when he got to the third knight, it began moving, and swung its axe down right at the man, and he did a super-amazing back-summersault out of the way just in time. He continued walking and dodged the same way two more times, and then he motioned for us to follow him, assuming it was safe.

"That was so _awesome_!" Ashley and I exclaimed at the same time, making him grin.

"You have to teach me that!" I begged, and he laughed.

"Maybe if I have some time after we leave this hell-hole, I'll think about it."

I couldn't help but let a smile creep across my face.

We turned right and stopped in front of a doorway to a circular shaped room.

"You girls stay here." Leon said and we obeyed.

There was a fancy looking cup protected in a cage in the center of the room. As soon as Leon took it out, a door slammed down, blocking us from entering the room.

"Leon!" Ashley and I both shouted.

Suddenly, you could hear gears turning and next thing we knew, there were three knights moving towards Leon, battle-axes at the ready. Leon pulled out his _TMP_ and began shooting away at their heads, exposing a Plagas. Once all three heads were out, he threw a flash grenade, killing them instantly. After another round of Plagas infected knights, the door rose once again and Leon passed safely to the other side. Well, as safe as one could be in this place.

"I _told_ you!" I shouted as we began walking back to the doors.

Leon rolled his eyes and Ashley waved her hand at me. "Yeah, yeah." She said.

When we got back into the main room, we took a right this time entering a golden door that was way too fancy for its purpose. The only things in that room were four pressure plates in the floor, a statue, and two other doors. One had no handle or anything, and the other was locked from the other side.

"What do we do?" I asked.

The agent thought for a second, then snapped his head up. "Emily, you stand on that plate… yeah like that. Ashley you stand on this one… And I'll move this here…" He pushed the statue onto one of the pressure plates and I shook my head once I caught myself staring at the way his muscles were flexed while doing so. Finally, after Leon stepped on the last plate, the door with no way of opening it rose up off the floor and we carefully entered.

Salazar was waiting for us in the middle of the room and in his annoying little voice said, "I think you've lived long enough…" Leon stepped forward in case Salazar was going to attack, but he didn't. "Let's see if you can survive this time…"

He threw his hand in the air and the door behind us slammed shut. My heart was racing. Then, the ceiling started lowering and _spikes_ shot out of it. It wasn't until then that I noticed the holes in the floor.

"_No!_" Ashley screamed in agony, realizing what was about to happen. I heard Salazar rush out of a door beside us, laughing as he scampered away.

I didn't know what to do. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Leon rush towards the door Salazar had escaped from, but it was no use; he had locked it behind him.

"I'm gonna get that bastard, I swear!" He shouted in fury.

Suddenly, I saw a red glint of light coming from one of the corners. Then I saw more in the other corners, too.

"Leon, look at the ceiling!" I shouted. He immediately caught on to what I was telling him, and shot all four lights, making the ceiling stop and the door Salazar escaped to open.

We were all breathing abnormally heavy and looking around at one another.

"I thought we were going to die…" Ashley whimpered.

"Me too." I added and Leon looked at the both of us.

"You girls shouldn't be saying stuff like that. We need to stay positive. I mean, we've made it this far, haven't we?"

We both nodded. "Yeah," he said. "Now come on. Let's keep going."

You could see the look of relief on his face as we were walking down a long, narrow hallway, making it obvious he thought the same thing we did.

Right when we got to the end of the hallway, and Leon walked through the doorway, bars shot down, locking Ashley and I in the hallway. Confused at first, we looked at each other, but then we heard the crash from behind us and screamed; two freaks were riding a big power drill, and driving it straight for us.

"Girls, get down!" He shouted and we obeyed. Two rifle shots later, the two men were dead and the bars were raised.

We carefully stepped into the room and Leon began checking for injuries, even though the thing came nowhere near us. "We're _fine_, Leon." We both kept insisting, but he still checked anyways, making us both blush furiously. But maybe that was his plan.


	33. Chapter 33

"What's the point of this?" I asked once we were standing back in front of the statues of a king and queen with each of the Holy Grails.

"I dunno. Maybe once we give these cups to them, they'll be nice enough to let us through these doors." Leon suggested.

"That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard." I said, and he rolled his eyes. "I'm serious, that sounds like something _I_ would say. I don't think that's such a good thing, Leon."

He laughed. "I guess you're just starting to rub off on me." I blushed and looked away, catching a glimpse of Ashley giggling to herself.

Once Leon placed both the cups in their places, there was a brief delay before the bars finally rose up and I stared in disbelief.

"Told ya'." Leon smirked as he opened the doors.

After walking down another long, breezy corridor, we entered two more doors and took in our surroundings. Almost half the dirty, stone-looking floor in the room was gone, only leaving room to walk down a bridge-type path to the other side. There were high windows at the top of the room, and a bridge raised up on the left wall.

We began walking forward, and when we got to the middle of the bridge I said "This is really creepy—"

Unfortunately, I didn't get to finish the rest of my sentence, because two giant _bugs _had swooped down, picked Ashley and I up, and began flying away.

"_OH MY GOD, LEON!_" Ashley and I shouted at the top of our lungs as we were being flown away. We just barely heard Leon shout _Dammit!_ Before we were out of the castle.

"This is so _fucking_ gross!" I shouted to Ashley who was kicking and whimpering beside me.

"It's useless, Ash. They're probably just taking us to that midget freak or something."

"What if he kills us?" She asked, in panic.

"Didn't Saddler say he wanted you alive?" I reminded her. "The worst that could happen is they turn is into one of those freaks."

She became quite for a second, and then said, "I'd rather be dead turn into one of them."

"… Amen to that." I couldn't help but agree.

About two minutes later, the bugs dropped us off outside of a big tower. And when I say _dropped_, I mean it literally. It hurt like a bitch.

We looked up at the three people standing in front of us: Salazar and his two bodyguards.

"Thought you could get away that easy, huh?"

"What the hell do you want from us?!" I said while coughing.

"I thought it was obvious now." The man-boy replied. "To turn you into Ganados and ship you off to America. Didn't Lord Saddler explain it to you?"

"He's no Lord." I retorted. "If anything, he's the devil! It isn't right what you're doing to people!"

Apparently I'd hit a nerve. "Up!" He shouted at us.

Sure, Salazar was just a small, puny little man, who probably couldn't even take a punch, but his guards' eyes were glowing red, and you couldn't see into their cloaks, just their mouths that moving ever so slightly when they would breathe. So we both followed Salazar's orders, terrified of what the cloaked things would do to us if we didn't behave.

After he tied our hands behind our backs, and took any weapons we had, we began walking across a bridge and the second we stepped off, it swung around to another part of the castle.

Suddenly, Salazar pulled out what looked like a phone and began talking into it. "I wonder if you can see me, Mr. Kennedy."

I snapped my head up. _Leon?_ Ashley and I exchanged looks; she was thinking the same.

Our thoughts were confirmed when we heard an angry voice coming from the other end. "If you even _scratch_ them I'll break your bones."

We didn't have time to blush; we were too terrified of everything else they could do to us that would be a million times worse than just a mere little scratch.

"First we shall see if you can make it this far… I'll be waiting." And with that he hung up and motioned for us to go forward.

We entered the room and Ashley and I both gasped at what we saw. Two of those things with claws were standing in the middle of the room surrounded by about eight zealots.

"Relax," Salazar said. "They won't hurt you… they're here for Mr. Scott." He kept walking forward with an evil grin plastered on his face. Ashley and I kept stealing nervous glances at each other until we were finally past them and out of the room.

After being not-so-kindly escorted up two flights of stairs, we entered a room that was mostly empty except for a throne that sat against the back wall. The black cloaked guard took Ashley and sat her down on her knees on the left side of the throne, and the red one took me to the right. We sat there for about ten minutes, neither of us dared to ask why, until finally the door opened and in strode a very handsome, worried-looking man.

"Girls!"

"Leon!" We both shouted back. He ran up to us but stopped about four feet in front of Salazar's throne.

"Mr. Kennedy…" He said. "Don't you know when it's time to throw in the towel…?" He lifted up his hand and pressed down on a red button on the arm of his chair. Suddenly, there was a draft coming from where Leon was standing and the floor dropped, making the agent fall to his inevitable death.

"LEON!" We both shouted at the top of our lungs. Could he be dead? What would happen to us if he was?

We sat there in shock, our eyes wide and filled with tears as our hearts beat mercilessly. Leon was dead. Our hero, our rescuer. The man of whom I had fallen undoubtedly in love with since this whole nightmare had started, and I couldn't believe it had taken me so long to realize it. I had finally given up hope, but then…

"Hmm… where's the satisfying sound of one's impalement?" Salazar was listening through an old-fashioned speaker that was connected to the side of his throne. And what did he mean he didn't hear an impalement…? Did that mean Leon wasn't dead?

My question was quickly answered when we heard a loud gunshot and Salazar cry out in pain as the sound echoed directly into his ear. "AHH! How dare you! No more games, kill him!" Nobody did anything. "_Kill_!" He began stomping and the guard in front of me walked off somewhere to the left, but I wasn't paying attention. My focus was directed at the man who was shouting to his other guard.

"Quickly, we shall prepare for the ritual!"

Ashley and the other guard walked over to where I was standing, and he pushed me forward. I took one last glance at the whole in the floor and said "Leon… you better be alive…"

"What's the point of this?" I asked once we were standing back in front of the statues of a king and queen with each of the Holy Grails.

"I dunno. Maybe once we give these cups to them, they'll be nice enough to let us through these doors." Leon suggested.

"That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard." I said, and he rolled his eyes. "I'm serious, that sounds like something _I_ would say. I don't think that's such a good thing, Leon."

He laughed. "I guess you're just starting to rub off on me." I blushed and looked away, catching a glimpse of Ashley giggling to herself.

Once Leon placed both the cups in their places, there was a brief delay before the bars finally rose up and I stared in disbelief.

"Told ya'." Leon smirked as he opened the doors.

After walking down another long, breezy corridor, we entered two more doors and took in our surroundings. Almost half the dirty, stone-looking floor in the room was gone, only leaving room to walk down a bridge-type path to the other side. There were high windows at the top of the room, and a bridge raised up on the left wall.

We began walking forward, and when we got to the middle of the bridge I said "This is really creepy—"

Unfortunately, I didn't get to finish the rest of my sentence, because two giant _bugs _had swooped down, picked Ashley and I up, and began flying away.

"_OH MY GOD, LEON!_" Ashley and I shouted at the top of our lungs as we were being flown away. We just barely heard Leon shout _Dammit!_ Before we were out of the castle.

"This is so _fucking_ gross!" I shouted to Ashley who was kicking and whimpering beside me.

"It's useless, Ash. They're probably just taking us to that midget freak or something."

"What if he kills us?" She asked, in panic.

"Didn't Saddler say he wanted you alive?" I reminded her. "The worst that could happen is they turn is into one of those freaks."

She became quite for a second, and then said, "I'd rather be dead turn into one of them."

"… Amen to that." I couldn't help but agree.

About two minutes later, the bugs dropped us off outside of a big tower. And when I say _dropped_, I mean it literally. It hurt like a bitch.

We looked up at the three people standing in front of us: Salazar and his two bodyguards.

"Thought you could get away that easy, huh?"

"What the hell do you want from us?!" I said while coughing.

"I thought it was obvious now." The man-boy replied. "To turn you into Ganados and ship you off to America. Didn't Lord Saddler explain it to you?"

"He's no Lord." I retorted. "If anything, he's the devil! It isn't right what you're doing to people!"

Apparently I'd hit a nerve. "Up!" He shouted at us.

Sure, Salazar was just a small, puny little man, who probably couldn't even take a punch, but his guards' eyes were glowing red, and you couldn't see into their cloaks, just their mouths that moving ever so slightly when they would breathe. So we both followed Salazar's orders, terrified of what the cloaked things would do to us if we didn't behave.

After he tied our hands behind our backs, and took any weapons we had, we began walking across a bridge and the second we stepped off, it swung around to another part of the castle.

Suddenly, Salazar pulled out what looked like a phone and began talking into it. "I wonder if you can see me, Mr. Kennedy."

I snapped my head up. _Leon?_ Ashley and I exchanged looks; she was thinking the same.

Our thoughts were confirmed when we heard an angry voice coming from the other end. "If you even _scratch_ them I'll break your bones."

We didn't have time to blush; we were too terrified of everything else they could do to us that would be a million times worse than just a mere little scratch.

"First we shall see if you can make it this far… I'll be waiting." And with that he hung up and motioned for us to go forward.

We entered the room and Ashley and I both gasped at what we saw. Two of those things with claws were standing in the middle of the room surrounded by about eight zealots.

"Relax," Salazar said. "They won't hurt you… they're here for Mr. Scott." He kept walking forward with an evil grin plastered on his face. Ashley and I kept stealing nervous glances at each other until we were finally past them and out of the room.

After being not-so-kindly escorted up two flights of stairs, we entered a room that was mostly empty except for a throne that sat against the back wall. The black cloaked guard took Ashley and sat her down on her knees on the left side of the throne, and the red one took me to the right. We sat there for about ten minutes, neither of us dared to ask why, until finally the door opened and in strode a very handsome, worried-looking man.

"Girls!"

"Leon!" We both shouted back. He ran up to us but stopped about four feet in front of Salazar's throne.

"Mr. Kennedy…" He said. "Don't you know when it's time to throw in the towel…?" He lifted up his hand and pressed down on a red button on the arm of his chair. Suddenly, there was a draft coming from where Leon was standing and the floor dropped, making the agent fall to his inevitable death.

"LEON!" We both shouted at the top of our lungs. Could he be dead? What would happen to us if he was?

We sat there in shock, our eyes wide and filled with tears as our hearts beat mercilessly. Leon was dead. Our hero, our rescuer. The man of whom I had fallen undoubtedly in love with since this whole nightmare had started, and I couldn't believe it had taken me so long to realize it. I had finally given up hope, but then…

"Hmm… where's the satisfying sound of one's impalement?" Salazar was listening through an old-fashioned speaker that was connected to the side of his throne. And what did he mean he didn't hear an impalement…? Did that mean Leon wasn't dead?

My question was quickly answered when we heard a loud gunshot and Salazar cry out in pain as the sound echoed directly into his ear. "AHH! How dare you! No more games, kill him!" Nobody did anything. "_Kill_!" He began stomping and the guard in front of me walked off somewhere to the left, but I wasn't paying attention. My focus was directed at the man who was shouting to his other guard.

"Quickly, we shall prepare for the ritual!"

Ashley and the other guard walked over to where I was standing, and he pushed me forward. I took one last glance at the whole in the floor and said "Leon… you better be alive…"


	34. Chapter 34

Salazar had brought us to a room with very creepy looking decorations- at least I had hoped they were decorations. There was a big, slimy, pulsating flower looking thing on the back wall, and the rest of the wall was just… slimy. He had told us to wait in there, and if we moved he would feed us to his 'cute pets', which I didn't really feel up to finding out what those were. We were sitting on steps in front of a stone table when Ashley said something.

"D-do you think he's coming for us…?" She asked. She had been crying almost the whole time after the midget dropped Leon down that hole.

I sighed for about the twelfth time. "I'm sure he is, Ash."

"What if he dies?"

She asked the question that had been on my mind for hours. What if Leon died? I didn't think I could handle that. I would probably just give in and let them turn me into one of those filthy Ganado freaks. "He's coming back, Ashley. I know he will." I didn't actually _know,_ but I had to lie for her sake, and possibly mine too.

Just then, the doors in front of us opened and in came a whimpering Salazar, whose hand had been bandaged, followed by his bodyguard. There was still no sign of the one who had gone after Leon; that gave me hope.

"What's the matter," I asked, looking at the bandage on his left hand. "Play too hard with your bed buddies?"

He gave me a stern look. "You shouldn't be so sarcastic with the man who will be in control of your life sometime within the next few days."

"Leon won't let that happen."

Salazar laughed coldly. "You think the American has the power to stop the Las Plagas transformation? He has also been infected. Soon enough, he will join us; become one of us… just like you."

"I think you're forgetting something." I retorted. "I was injected with the little egg things _hours_ after Ashley. If she's just now ready for this 'ritual', don't you think it's a bit too soon for me?"

It seemed as though that was exactly what he wanted me to say. "Ah, yes… Ms. Ryan… we've prepared a special ritual for you…"

Just as he said that, I got a horrible pain in my chest, ten times worse than when I got caught in that trap. With every cough, at least half a cup of blood came pouring out of my mouth.

"_Emily!_" Ashley shouted.

My vision went blurry, and the last thing I heard was from Salazar:

"She's ready…"

…

I was having a nightmare, except in that nightmare it felt so _real_. I dreamed that I was back in the village and it was dark. So dark, in fact, that I couldn't see anything. The only light came from the occasional flashes of lightning.

The weird part was I couldn't control anything I was doing. I could see, but it was as if someone else was controlling every movement I made. I was just standing there for a while, occasionally looking around at my surroundings, until I saw two familiar looking people walking through the village.

_Mom? Dad?_ I called out to them, but my voice wouldn't work. _Mom! Dad!_ Still nothing. Before I knew it, I was running towards them. I wanted to open up my arms and hug them, and have them tell me everything was going to be okay… but that's not what happened. Apparently I had been carrying a kitchen knife, and was now trying to slice them with it. I tried to stop, but my arm kept moving. I was crying on the inside, wishing everything would stop, that I would just die and I wouldn't have to witness their deaths again, when suddenly the scene changed. I was standing in front of the church we had found Ashley in when I saw a very muscular man wandering up the path through the graveyard, weapon ready.

_Leon! _I tried to shout, but no sound came out. _Leon, please help me!_

He had spotted me, and I was sobbing now. I didn't want to hurt anyone, but my legs began moving on their own. There was a loud gunshot, and I jerked awake in a cold sweat.

Gasping for breath, the remnants of my dream slowly fading away, I looked around to find I was in a boat driving in the middle of the ocean. Ashley lay asleep beside me, and there were two oblivious Ganados driving the boat in front of me.

"Ashley, wake up." I nudged her arm gently as she slowly returned to consciousness.

"Wh… where are we?" She asked, still a bit drowsy.

"On a boat somewhere…"

We didn't say much after that, just looked around, trying to find any clues as to where we might be headed.

About thirty minutes later, we arrived at a very run-down looking island. The men forced us out of the boat, threw us over their shoulders, and began walking through an area with many other freaks loitering around. There was a big, muscular guy carrying a Gatling gun and I just prayed Leon wouldn't have to fight him.

Speaking of Leon, Ashley wouldn't stop screaming his name. "_Leon! Help!_" She shouted over and over again.

The men took us through doors and into a very dirty building that had rotten meat all in it. I felt like I was about to puke. I would have fought the men carrying us, but whatever they did to me during the ritual had left me feeling weak and tired, and I didn't think I would have been able to win. About ten minutes later, we arrived at our apparent destination. There was a metal door with bars just above eye level on it. There were a lot of boxes set up around the room, which I decided to sit against while Ashley continued to bang her hands against the door and yell for Leon. I was pretty sure the men in the room with us were getting pretty tired of it, but before I could say anything, one of the men approached her, and threw her down on the ground.

"Ashley!" I stood up, ready to beat the hell out of him, but then all of the sudden my head felt lighter than air, and I got extreme tunnel vision. I had to sit back down immediately or else I most likely would have passed out again. Too bad it was for nothing; one of the Ganado smacked me hard in the head with the butt of his gun, and I fell unconscious on impact.


	35. Chapter 35

My head was throbbing, and I couldn't open my eyes. I could hear a faint voice in the distance, but it was echo-y and I couldn't make out who it was, or what they were saying. Something cool was pressed against my face, but that was almost all I could feel as everything else was numb.

And then suddenly a hand. On my shoulder. No, wait—my arm. And now my face as I felt it gently brush what I thought were my bangs off of my forehead.

The voice was clearer now, and if I wasn't mistaken, I think there were two of them. One was louder and deeper—Leon's? Oh my god, Leon. The man who I had been dying to see for hours, the only person on my mind the entire time as I tuned out Ashley's constant screaming.

Wait, Ashley. I could hear her, too. She was whimpering, and it was only then did I remember what situation we were in.

My eyes slowly drifted open, crust-filled and blurry. It was hard to move; it nearly took all of my strength just to open my eyes, but I slowly tried pushing myself off of the floor into a sitting position.

There was the sound of movement and for a split second I was worried it would be another Ganado to knock me out again.

But then he said my name.

"Emily!"

His voice was filled with more emotion and relief than I'd ever heard before, but it only lasted for a second before it was replaced with concerned as I struggled to get up.

"Careful…"

"L-Leon…?" I forced the syllables from my lips, knowing it would be too good to be true.

"I'm right here…"

Finally, my eyes focused, and looking up, I saw soft, blue eyes looking down at me.

"Leon… How…" before I could process what I wanted to say, I saw Ashley standing behind him, with tears in her eyes and bruises on her face and arms.

"A-Ash… I'm s-so sorry… I tried… I really did…"

She just smiled sadly and Leon spoke before she could. "Relax, don't stress yourself. You need to take it easy."

Everything had become clearer, but I still felt weak.

"Here…" He pulled a green bottle from his pants pocket. "It's a drug that stops growth of the parasite… The ones Luis went back for. He gave them to me before…" His voice fell silent.

"Yeah… sure…"

I felt three pills fall into my hand, and popped them into my mouth. I didn't know if they would work after the ritual, but I was more than willing to try. I sat up and leaned against the stone wall behind me as I forced my dry throat to swallow the drugs. It may have just been a placebo effect, but I almost immediately felt better, and I could focus on everything almost perfectly now.

"You okay?" The man in front of me asked.

"Y-yeah… I think," I replied tentatively. "Can you… can you help me up?"

"Yeah, of course." He grabbed my hand and placed his other gently on my lower back as he helped me to a standing position. I kept my free hand on my forehead, feeling light headed again, as I tried to stop the incoming tunnel vision. After blinking a few times, I looked up at Leon and Ashley; their eyes were both full of so much worry and care, it made me tear up.

I couldn't help it; I threw myself into his chest and squeezed, hard, also motioning for Ashley to join, which she did. When we pulled away, I was surprised to feel warm saltwater trickling down my cheeks.

"I'm sorry, Ash… I really am… I'm sorry if they hurt you, I know I could have tried harder, or—"

"No," she cut me off. "I-it's alright. I kicked their asses." She laughed, and I couldn't help but laugh lightly right along with her after wiping the water off of my face.

I gazed up at Leon; a smile had plastered itself on his face, but I could still see the worry in his eyes. Before I realized what I was doing, my hand began moving forward and gently placed itself on his forearm. He was warm, his skin smooth, and his eyes darted to the where the skin-on-skin contact was taking place before retreating back to meet my own.

"Hey… it's gonna be okay... okay?" As I said this, one last tear slid down my cheek, but I smiled reassuringly to the blonde man before me.

He carefully eyed me, not sure if he should believe me and get us all the heck out of dodge, or to make us stay and wait a little while longer until he was sure I felt better.

Seeing his eyes and raising him a determined stare, I spoke softly, as if we were the only two in the room, and those three words were meant for his ears and his ears only.

"Really… I promise." My eyes did most of the talking, and I knew I had gotten through to him.

"Okay," he spoke hesitantly, and with one last once over of my being, we exited the room.

I was probably making it obvious that I was falling head over heels for him, but I didn't really care. Leon was back, and we were safe… at least for a little while.


	36. Chapter 36

"Well, this is it."

Leon had led Ashley and I back to a waste disposal area. It was about a forty foot drop, and at the bottom was layers and layers of… filth.

"Y-you can't be serious." I said, backing away from the edge of the hole.

"As serious as I'm gonna be."

"'It stinks!" Ashley complained, grabbing her nose.

"Sure does," he said before looking over to me. "You think you can do this?"

I nodded nervously. "Y-yeah, I'm fine."

He then held out his gloved hand. Smiling, I took it gratefully and we all jumped down.

We landed on a large pile of trash and Leon was the first to stand up.

"Are you out of your mind?" Ashley asked, clearly unhappy with what had just happened.

"I knew you'd be fine if you landed on your butt."

He helped me up first and asked if I was okay, which I simply nodded to. As he helped Ashley up, I turned around when I heard her ask, "What is this thing?"

She had landed on what looked like a deformed body that was covered in spikes, and it had long, sharp teeth that didn't fit in its mouth. And apparently it was slimy because there were juices sliding all down her arm.

"Come on." Leon said as he pulled her up.

There were bars blocking our way to the other side of the room, and as soon as we pulled the lever to lift them up, we heard rustling behind us and heavy, shaky breathing.

"What is that thing?!" Ashley hollered.

"Hurry, come on!" Leon had quickly run through a doorway and was standing by another lever, which I guessed dropped the bars again.

Ashley and I ran and stood by his side, and as soon as he hit the lever, the bars dropped and the thing was trapped on the other side.

We were in a giant room that had lava traveling through the middle of it. There was another doorway in front of us, and a dumpster to the left. Past the doorway was where the lava was, and half of a bridge passing over it. There was also a large, metal, rust-colored box beside it.

We ran over to the box and pushed it to fill the gap in the bridge when we heard the bars rise again.

"Did he just pull the lever?!" I asked, beginning to panic.

"Just come on!"

But we couldn't run far, there was another thing right around the corner. Good thing they walked slowly.

"Girls, hide in there!" He pointed to another small dumpster.

"Leon, I'm pretty sure if they can pull levers, they can open dumpsters."

"Just do it!"

We quickly hopped into the dumpster and shut the lid. There were a few gunshots, and then we heard an explosion. We waited a few seconds and then we heard Leon say "Okay, it's safe!"

After stepping out, I walked up to Leon and said, "Are you going to tell us what the hell those things were?!"

He sighed. "I would, but I don't even really know myself."

"Well what was that explosion?" Ashley asked.

"I bought another Rocket Launcher."

We and walked across a metal bridge, and over to a side room where another big metal box was blocking a door. We quickly pushed it aside and stepped through. The rest of the area looked really run-down. Every hallway we walked through had rocks everywhere, and holes in the walls. Eventually we came up to a ledge you had to jump from to reach another room. There was a hole in the floor filled with lava, a giant wrecking ball hovering over it, and an operating room in the far right corner. As soon as we jumped down, Ashley pointed to the left at a large pile of rubble, saying "Look, there's a gate here.

Turned out, she was right. Under all of that debris there was a giant rusted door.

"Well how do we get through it?" I asked.

"I'm guessing with this." said Leon, looking up at the giant wrecking ball.

Just then, a door opened in the back of the room and out poured about a dozen Ganados, followed by a massive freak, covered in metal armor and wielding a giant mallet.

"You girls go pull that lever, while I fight off these guys!"

Ashley and I both ran into the operating room and pulled the lever that operated the wrecking ball. It immediately swung forward, barely doing any damage to the pile of rocks blocking the door.

"Hit it again!" Leon yelled from outside, shot-gunning away at all the new people that showed up.

I nodded and pulled the switch down. Once again the ball swung forward, but it only did a little more damage than last time.

"One more time!"

_BANG!_ Finally, the rocks were crushed, and we could open the door. Ashley and I ran out of the operating room and up to Leon.

"Come on!" He yelled, and we ran through the gate with the freaks still chasing us.

As soon as we were on the other side of the gate, we heard very heavy and shaky breathing. Ashley and I cowered in fear behind Leon, and he kept giving nervous glances at the shutter in front of us.

"Stay right here." He said, as he began slowly walking forward. He pulled the lever and when the door rose up, it wasn't like the last one. This deformed guy didn't have spikes all in him; he was just a dusty gray color. The thing was dead in about a whole magazine of _TMP_ bullets.

Sighing in relief, the agent turned back to us. "Those guys aren't as bad. All they do is regenerate their limbs and such. Thus, giving them the name _Regenerator_."

My eyes grew wide. "R-regenerate their _limbs?!_ How the hell is that even possible?!"

"How the hell is any of this possible?"

He had a point there, and I knew better than to say anything about it. He had this look in his eyes that warned me not to cross a certain boundary, even though I had no idea what it was.

There was another Regenerator down the hall, and once Leon killed him we found that the next shutter we had to pass through wouldn't open. After back-tracking, we found a room that had a power switch in it, and when we pressed it, the shutter opened, but only about halfway. I carefully crawled under it and pulled a lever on the other side, opening the door.

"Nice job." Leon said and I, obviously, turned very red.

Around the corner there was a door with a 'high-security lock' on it. All we had to do was pull two levers at the same time when it gave us the signal… Yes, _very_ high-security, Saddler.

This room was filled with boxes, and there was a large pickup-truck/bulldozer in front of us.

"I'll drive!" Ashley called out as she climbed into the seat by the steering wheel.

Leon and I hopped up onto the bed of the truck and jerked forward when the truck started up. Ashley tore down the door blocking our path and when she began driving forward, Leon and I gaped at each other.

"How on earth do you know how to work one of these things?" I asked.

"I don't know!" She replied with enthusiasm. "I'm just pressing buttons!"

Leon's face blanched, along with mine, and he turned to Ashley. "Uh… maybe I should drive Ash…"

"What? No! I can do this, rea—"

And then we heard shouts coming from behind us.


	37. Chapter 37

"Ashley, drive!" Leon shouted. He pulled out his gun and began shooting the men who were running after us before tossing me some ammo.

"Salazar took our guns!"

"Then use this," he said, handing me his _Blacktail_. I smiled; it felt _so _nice having that gun back in my hands.

We were keeping the freaks down fine, until another truck came barreling towards us, it's horn blaring.

"What do we do, Leon?!" I asked in a panic, but he had already pulled out his _TMP_ and had begun shooting the trucks engine. In about three seconds, the truck had erupted in flames and had crashed right in front of us.

I caught my breath and smiled at the man. "That was close."

"Too close." He nodded.

"And kind of amazing…" I admitted, not looking him in the eyes.

He grinned with his eyebrows raised at me, turning my face red. Then, the truck stopped and another shutter fell down behind us, so we couldn't go back. "Leon, up there!" Ashley pointed to a lever up on a floor above us.

"Alright, I'm gonna go up there and pull that lever, Emily, you stay and shoot anyone who jumps down, and Ashley…" She looked up hopefully. "Just sit there until I get back." Her look suddenly fell, and I shrugged when she looked at me.

Leon hopped off the back of the truck and climbed up a ladder to our left. We heard him fight a few guys up there, and some even jumped down onto the truck, but I shot them like Leon told me too. After about two minutes he was back aboard the truck, and the lift was rising, taking us to our next destination.

Suddenly we stopped and doors in front of us opened and Ashley was driving again. There were a lot more people who ambushed us this time. Too many people for Leon and I to handle, even with his trusty _TMP_, so he pulled out Ye Olden _Striker_, and there were body parts flying everywhere.

Just then another truck blared its horn and Ashley shouted. "It's coming right at us!"

Leon did everything he could, but the truck wouldn't stop barreling towards us. At the last second though, Ashley twisted the wheel hard to the left, and we crashed into the building next to us.

There was dust and rubble everywhere. I heard the sound of grunting immediately followed by "Are you girls okay?"

"Yeah…" Ashley grunted stepping off the truck.

"Em?" Leon called out.

"Y-yeah, I'm fine… _Ah-!"_ I screamed in shock and pain. My hair had been caught under one of the rocks. Leon was immediately at my side.

"What's wrong? Where are you hurt?" He was flooding me with questions again.

"It's my hair…" I said. I knew putting my hair in a ponytail would eventually cause some kind of harm. Well, not really, I just didn't want to admit to myself that after all we had been through, my _hair_ would be the thing to hurt me.

"Hold on, I'll get it." Leon quickly lifted the rock that was pinning me and I was free.

"Thanks." I said with a small smile.

"No problem. You ready?"

I nodded sheepishly and we all walked forward.

After opening the door to the next room, we saw there were multiple chairs and tables in front of us, but the main thing I noticed was the blue torch in the back of the room. I didn't run up to him yet, because Leon wanted to loot the room first, even though I had assured him we wouldn't find anything. If there was something valuable, the Merchant probably would have taken it. But he didn't listen and kept searching.

"Leon," said man looked at me. "If you could have anything you wanted right now, what would it be?"

He thought for a second. "Anything I want?" I nodded and he continued. "Hmm… that's a tough one. But if I had to choose, I guess I'd want three one-way tickets back home."

I thought about that for a moment, and then he said, "What about you?"

"What?" I looked up at him, not understanding what he was talking about. My mind was elsewhere at the moment.

"What would you want?"

I knew what I wanted, and it was hard just saying it. "M-my parents… duh."

"Well… that's a given. Anything other than that."

_You. I want you and I want you like I've never wanted anything else, parents aside._

"Uh…" _Please don't say 'You.' Please don't say 'You.'_

Thankfully, I didn't; I said the second thing that came to my mind. "Cheesecake."

He looked at me with a raised eyebrow and a smirk. "Cheesecake, huh?" I nodded. "Yeah, that does sound pretty good."

"What about you, Ash?"

"Huh?" She snapped her head up. She'd obviously been deep in thought about something.

"If you could have anything in the world right now, what would it be?"

"Oh uh… Chinese food." She said with a large, toothy smile.

"Oh, I_ LOVE _Chinese food!" I quickly agreed.

The man beside us just chuckled and finally walked up the Merchant.

I was mentally arguing with myself while he exchanged jewels and such with the masked man. I was going insane. Leon was ten years older than me, why was I wasting my time thinking about him so much, when I knew there was virtually no chance of me ever having a shot with him? I mean, he was gorgeous; he could have any woman he wanted, what made me think he would even want to look at me twice?

Whatever it was, it was driving me forward. I hated to admit it, but I was head over heels in love with him, and that wasn't going to change anytime soon.

"You ready to go?" Leon asked, snapping me out of my thoughts. I know I've mentioned it before, but just that _one_ look, the one where there's just a glint of _something_ in his eyes, and only a half-smile on his face. That one. It made my heart race and my face turn a deep shade of red.

"Y-yeah…" I said, walking past him, trying to hide my face.

The second I saw what was behind those doors I gasped rather loudly. The room was empty except for a table that stood up on the floor above some stairs, but that's not what scared me; Saddler was standing there, holding his freaky pole, and giving us a glare that could cut through steel.

Leon rushed out and stepped in front of Ashley and me.

"I can feel them growing ever so strongly inside you…" Saddler said in his creepy voice.

"Saddler!" Leon shouted. He began sprinting forward, towards the robed man, but suddenly Saddlers hand shot up and Leon stopped dead in his tracks, clutching his chest. He was screaming and grunting in pain.

"_Leon!" _I screamed. Ashley looked almost in tears.

"Perhaps you can resist… but you cannot disobey." I hated that man. He was the reason so many people I cared about were dead. My mom, my dad, Luis… I didn't know if I could make it out of there if he took Leon from me, too.

With Leon still grunting in pain on his hands and knees, I began rushing forward. I didn't know what I would do once I got to Saddler, but I was running. Not for long, though. Suddenly there was an overwhelming pain in my chest. I couldn't process what was happening and collapsed to the floor as I felt the pain as strong as a hundred daggers digging themselves straight into my torso. I was screaming so loudly and was shocked at how much sound could find its way out of my throat. My screams sounded desperate, and were filled with so much agony it scared me. My eyes were watery with the sheer pain and my breathing came out in sharp, shallow rasps. Sweat dripped down the side of my face and covered my forehead in a thin sheen. Eventually, my screams were reduced to loud grunts and sharp intakes of breath. I didn't know how much more I could take. That's when I heard Saddler scoff and move his hand towards Ashley.

"Now, come to me… Ashley."

I could hear her gasp, and a few seconds later, I saw her muddy brown boots walk their way across the room to the man standing there.

"Ash…ley…" Leon managed to grunt out. I knew he was still in pain, and not being able to do anything about it hurt. So I had the _very_ physical stabbing pain in my chest, and emotional pain gnawing at my heart-strings.

I squeezed my eyes shut tight. I wanted the pain to go away, for everything to go away. It was all too much for me. I would need serious therapy after everything ended, but that's if it did.

To my utter disbelief, the pain in my chest slowly began fading, and I sat up clutching my chest.

"You okay?" I heard Leon ask and he crouched down in front of me. I felt the need to cry and hug him at the same time. I looked up into his eyes, and I swear I don't know what came over me, but I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his.

His mouth lay dry, unmoving, but still the sweetest thing I'd ever tasted in my life. I moved my tentative lips over his. I didn't really expect him to respond in anyway, but when I felt his bottom lip make the slightest of movements, I reached up and placed my hands on either sides of his face. It wasn't like it was in the movies; it was so much better. One of his hands was resting on me neck, guiding me to his lips. My heart was racing and my hands slowly made their way down, and I wrapped my arms around his neck, one of my hands tangling itself in his hair. I could tell he was very tentative about everything, but it was obvious a small part, no matter how deep down, wanted it too; he kissed me back with almost the same amount of force. It was right after I gently brushed my tongue against his bottom lip when he finally pulled away.

"Emily, wait."

I ignored him and kissed him quickly one more time. I was falling apart, and he was the only one who could put me back together. I _needed_ him.

When I pulled away again, his eyes had taken on a harder glow.

He stood up slowly, putting some distance between us so he could speak. "I don't think that's the best thing that could have happened…" I refused to look him in the eye. "I…" He sighed. "You're confused, and you don't know what you're doing. Yes, it's normal for a young woman to develop feelings for their rescuer, if you could even call me that, but it doesn't necessarily mean you should act on those feelings."

"Hey, you kissed me back." I retorted. I was trying my best not to let the pain in my voice show through.

He sighed again. "I know, that was wrong of me. It won't happen again."

I stared up at him. "Leon, I—"

"You don't know what you're doing." He interrupted. "Think about things like that before you do them."

I finally stood up, too. "That's the thing, Leon. I _have_ thought about it. I've _been_ thinking about it!"

"You're _seventeen!_"

"Well that obviously didn't matter a second ago!"

I had hit a nerve, I knew it. "I just…" I took a few steps forward so that I was inches away from him. I could feel the heat radiating from his body and I had to fight the urge to kiss him again. I rested my forehead and my hands on his broad chest, afraid to say anything else.

I felt his chest rise and fall before he finally said, "I think… it would be best if we acted like this didn't happen for a while."

I nodded slightly. I'm not going to lie, that hurt. But I also knew that neither of us needed for me to start crying again. That would just freak him out more, and we needed to find Ashley.

_There. That's a good place to stop right? ;D Sorry for spamming your inboxes with chapters, I just really felt like I should make up for the time I was gone. So how'd you like the chapters? Reading them yesterday I couldn't help but fangirl all over again. It's not weird fangirling over your own work, is it? Nahh. _

_Anyways, like I said before should I start a new series, maybe an AU or something similar, or write another fic for Leon and Emily. I could go either way on that. I'd be fine leaving their story how I did in IOJB, but I could also make something interesting. Very interesting. Muahaha. _

_Ahem. Yeah. So new story all together or another branch off of this series? I would really appreciate your help on this. After all, you gotta give the people what they want, right? Right. Again thanks, and I __**promise**__ to have a few more chapters up tomorrow. See you then 3_


	38. Chapter 38

_Sorry I know I promised to update immediately but here are some more chapters, but just so you know I am trying to get working on something new. A chapter story, maybe. So keep your eyes out! It may not be for a while, I want to make sure it's good before I put it up. But here you go! I hope you enjoy~_

Leon and I didn't really speak much after that. We walked through a room with multiple people in it, and the most we said to each other was _'Look out!'_ or _'Hey, there's some ammo over here.'_, but that was it. It wasn't until we had ridden up an elevator and were standing on a metal floor when he actually _spoke_ to me.

"Stay here. I have a bad feeling about this, and… yeah." We were about three stories above the ground, and there were only railings blocking us from falling and receiving serious injuries, if not death.

_'You don't want anything to happen to me…?'_ I thought to myself. I was too afraid to actually say anything. I didn't want to say something wrong and have him hate me for the rest of eternity. I just nodded and he proceeded forward, with me waiting behind in front of the elevator.

It turned out Leon was right, because just then a man dropped down from one of the pipes on the ceiling, wielding a blade. Before I had time to do anything, the man spoke first.

"Been a long time… Comrade…" He said. His voice was almost as creepy as Saddler's.

Apparently, Leon was familiar with this guy, because his eyes widened and he immediately said "Krauser!"

"I died in the crash two years ago… is that what they told you?" He asked, making me more and more confused by the second.

"You're the one who kidnapped Ashley!"

The man named Krauser began pacing circles around Leon, twirling his sharp knife in his hand. "You catch on quick, as expected. After all, you and I both know where we come from."

Just then, Krauser lurched at Leon with his knife, and he dodged just in time. They were both going at each other with their knives now. I didn't know if I should've done something, or stay put like Leon told me to. I didn't want to get on his bad side after what had happened earlier, but I couldn't stand to see him get killed by this guy who had _obviously_ been taking some form of steroids…

"What do you want?!" Leon shouted, snapping me out of my thoughts.

The man didn't say anything, just grunted and jumped at Leon again. I didn't know how much I could take of this.

"The sample Saddler developed, that's all." My eyes grew wide. He was involved with this?

"Leave Ashley outta this!" Leon shouted.

"Oh, I needed her to buy Saddler's trust in me. Like you, I'm American."

He lunged at Leon again, and this time he just barely dodged his attack. Then suddenly they both dove over a ledge and I gasped loudly. I ran over to where they just were and stood by where they fell. It wasn't a long fall, and they were already fighting again. Leon had sprinted straight towards him, and sliced his chest. Krauser didn't look too pleased about that, and dove for him again. He swung Leon around, and kicked him down. I held back a shriek and kept watching.

"All for Umbrella's sake…" He said, mysteriously.

"Umbrella?" Leon voiced my thoughts, but it sounded as if that word had significance to something I didn't know about.

"Almost let it slip... Enough talk, die comrade!"

Just then, he lunged straight for Leon, who was still on the floor, with his knife aimed straight at his chest.

I couldn't help it. "NO!_" _I screamed, getting glances from both of them. Krauser looked confused, and I couldn't read Leon's face. Apparently my shouting had spared somebody enough time to shoot the knife out of Krauser's hand and we all looked up at where the shot had come from. Both of the men had jumped up and were now staring up at a higher platform where a woman stood with short black hair, and a long red dress.

"Ada!_"_ Leon shouted.

Krauser looked at her smugly and said "Well, if it isn't the bitch in the red dress."

Wait—red dress? Was she the woman Ashley had told me about?

"Looks like we have the upper hand, here." She said coolly, keeping her gun aimed at the man.

Krauser chuckled before doing a gravity-defying backflip up a ladder behind him. "You may be able to prolong your life, but it's not like you can escape your inevitable death, is it?"

He turned to me and flashed a glare before turning around and running away, leaving me to ponder what his intentions were now. The woman and I jumped down at the same time, both walking to Leon.

"You… knew each other?" She asked, referring to Krauser.

"More or less… maybe it's about time you told me why _you're_ here?" He suggested roughly.

She rolled her eyes and looked at me. "So, this must be that girl." Ada grinned smugly. I looked quickly at Leon. Had he told her about me? He was giving the woman a look that warned '_don't push it'._

One glance at the look he was giving her, and all she did was roll her eyes. "Just be careful." She began walking away, but stopped and turned around one more time. "Leon's quite the man."

And then she was gone.


	39. Chapter 39

I opened my mouth to explain to him how sorry I was for not staying put like he told me to, but then a loud beeping noise came from his belt.

"Enjoy the reunion with your old friend?" Came Saddler's voice from the other end of Leon's communicator.

"As a matter of fact, I did." Leon retorted.

"Wonderful. I wouldn't want my special guests on my island feeling unattended." He spoke the last words like he was talking to a sad dog.

"Guess I'm supposed to thank you, right?"

"Ah, I have an idea! Since you're here, why don't I introduce you to 'It'." Leon and I exchanged looks of confusion before he nodded and turned back to the device. "'It' should keep you company."

"Can't remember the name, huh? A senior moment perhaps." He said, trying to pry whatever the creature was out of the man.

This just resulted in getting a very forced laugh from him. "Enjoy the fun." He said before hastily hanging up.

"Leon, I-I'm so sorry for not waiting like you told me to. It's just, I thought you—"

"It's fine." He interrupted. "I'm actually glad you came when you did; you distracted him just long enough for me to get away."

I couldn't tell if he was just saying that to make me feel better, or if he truly meant it. "But what about that woman…?" I asked, looking up at him.

He sighed and shook his head. "I don't really feel like talking about it right now."

I looked him directly in the eyes, very sternly. "Leon. Please tell me."

He looked back at me, but I held my stare; I could see his eyes softening. "…Okay. Do you want the whole story or—"

"The whole thing." I interrupted. "Start from the beginning."

He sighed again. He had a habit of doing that. "Okay. It was September of 1998, you were probably about eleven, and it was my first day on the force of the Raccoon City Police Department…"

He continued to explain to me everything that happened six years ago, and I mean _everything_. Every inch of detail from finding Claire Redfield, Claire finding Sherry on the search for her brother Chris, then they found Ada who was looking for her fiancé, John, but she was really just a spy for a man named Albert Wesker. Wesker invented the T-virus, which turned people into _zombies_. _Real. Zombies. _I had a hard time believing it until I thought about everything that's happened here and came to the conclusion that anything was possible. I mean hey, I kissed the hottest man on the planet not even ten minutes ago.

It turned out that Wesker was the head of an International Pharmaceutical Enterprise called Umbrella. Ada had been working for him, and was sent to retrieve the G-virus sample, but all of the samples had been destroyed, except for one which had been used on Dr. William Birkin. The doctor's wife confronted Leon about how Ada was a spy, and then shot her, making her fall to her 'death'. He also explained how in 2002, he and Krauser went to South America to search for missing teenage girls, and there was this one freaky chick who totally messed up Krauser's left arm, but I wasn't very interested in that part; I was focused on the story about Ada.

"So… you love her." The pain was obvious in my voice; I didn't even try to hide it.

He sighed heavily. "Remind me why I'm talking about this with you?"

I was quiet, and looked down at my shoes. Maybe he had a point, what right did I have to discuss his love life with him? Then again, I _did_ kiss him earlier…

"Come on…" He said as sincerely as he could, and he turned around to walk to a ladder beside us.

"Wait, is she still working for him?" I tried to hide the pain in my voice, and replaced it with curiosity.

"What?"

"Is she still working for Wesker?"

He was silent for a second, but then he answered in a short statement. "Yes." He said.

My reply came quickly; I didn't have time to think about it before I was already saying it. "Leon, she lied to you, betrayed you, _and_ faked her own death… can't you take a hint?" I was being harsh, I knew it. But it hurt loving someone when they loved someone else.

He thought about what I said for about two seconds, before walking away, leaving my question unanswered.

"Leon, wait." I called after him, but didn't move.

"Leon, _please…_" There was obvious desperation in my voice and he stopped, but didn't turn around. My eyes very suddenly filling with those dreaded drops of water as my brain decided to be an ass and reminded me of every bad thing that had happened since I arrived in that God forsaken place.

I tried my best to hold the tears in, but to no avail. "I'm sorry…"

Before I realized it, his arms were wrapped around me. To be honest, it just made me feel worse. I was already a total mess, and after kissing him, I was almost positive some wire in my brain had begun to unravel.

To my surprise, I was the one who let go first, even though it only lasted around three seconds.

"I'm sorry." I repeated, barely audibly. I wasn't crying much anymore, but I wasn't necessarily cheerful either. "For everything… For coming with you, getting you hurt so many times, getting on your nerves, getting trapped and having you spend so much time looking for me, and I bet someone can find some way to pin me on what happened to Luis, and—"

"Hey," He snapped. "Look at me. That was not your fault. It was Saddler's. Okay? You are not responsible in anyway, how _could_ you be? You were in that trap, remember?"

I nodded sheepishly. "Yeah… And Leon, about what happened earlier, I—"

"You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."

I was quiet for a moment. "You know, I'm not going to lie. It's going to be a lot harder being this close to you from now on." I gave him a small smile, and he smiled back.

"Am I that irresistible?" Hearing him joke like that again made me smile even bigger.

"We're going to have to talk about that eventually." I said as we were walking across the metal floor.

He nodded. "I know." He jumped down a ladder and I followed him.

We kept walking until we came across a very shiny metal door. Leon opened it with caution and we both looked around in confusion. This had to be the _cleanest_ room I had seen on this island. There were two doors in front of us and I approached them carefully, but as soon as I was within three inches of them, they slid open revealing a white hallway.

"Let me go first." Leon said as he walked past me.

I nodded and after he took two steps, three lasers emitted from the walls. Two were vertical, moving left and right, and one was horizontal moving up and down.

"Follow my lead." He said. He waited until there was an opening and quickly rushed through, turning back around and motioning me to follow him.

I mimicked his actions and once we took a few more steps forward, more lasers shot out. There were five this time, and they kept crisscrossing with each other. Leon waited for a clear path and ran through them, but immediately halted when more lasers shot out. They were crisscrossed and they began moving forward towards him at a fast pace. From what I could see, there was no way to dodge in time from where he was standing.

"Leon!" I shouted from behind him. When those lasers popped out, the ones behind me all disappeared. Just before they hit him, he dove straight through an opening in the middle. I turned around and began running back. The doors didn't open when I walked up to them, and the lasers stopped about four feet in front of me. But then, about twenty more shot out in front of Leon and he did a super amazing somersault in between them, just barely dodging the lasers.

"What do I do?!" I shouted. They were racing towards me now.

"Just get down!"

I did as he said and I laid flat on my stomach, the deathly lasers just barely missing me. But there were more. Leon had pressed a button by the doors at the end of the hallway and more lasers had flashed right above me, moving towards him. He dodged them, of course, but I didn't get to see what happened because I was still lying on the floor, afraid there was going to be more. A few seconds later I heard a beep and looked up: Leon was at the doors and the light beside them had turned green. I assumed it was okay and jumped up, even though if I was wrong I'd most likely be dead.

"Are you okay?" I asked him, my eyes darting all over his body to check for injuries.

He nodded. "I'm fine."

I studied him. Even if he wasn't fine, he probably wouldn't tell me. But I just decided to go with it. "You have to teach me how to do that." I said as we walked through the doors.

He grinned. "Like I said, maybe after this whole thing is over."

That gave me more hope than I thought it would. After this was over… would that mean we'd stay in touch?

My thoughts didn't have much room to wander because this room was even more confusing than the last. There weren't any visible doors, and there was a throne sitting in the middle of the room, a single red light shining down on it, the Las Plagas symbol on the wall behind it.

"What do we do now?" I asked, turning to the man next to me. He seemed just as confused as I was, though.

He walked over and around the throne, revealing another motion censored door behind the throne, the place I thought was a wall. It was a circular elevator that was just big enough to fit a person and have enough room for them to move around in, making it very awkward for Leon and me; we were only about six inches apart, facing each other. I tried my best not to look directly at him, but as soon as the elevator went down it was pretty much impossible. We went down a very narrow and long tube.

"L-Leon?" I called out into the darkness.

"Yeah?" His voice came back louder and closer than I'd expected.

"A-Are you sure this goes anywhere?"

He was quiet for a second and then said, "Well, it has to. Why would you have athrone in a room that leads nowhere?"

He had a point, so I didn't say much. After a few seconds, though, I said, "I-It's dark…"

I could hear the smirk in his voice. "Well, I'm not going anywhere."

A broad grin appeared on my face. "I know."


	40. Chapter 40

The elevator came to a slow stop somewhere underground, and we stepped off into a well-lit room. The walls were carved from dirt, and there were lights every few feet. We walked down a few steps, took a right and began walking down a hallway when we spotted the Merchant. I was too distracted by everything that happened earlier to do my usual intro.

I walked up to him casually and Leon looked at me questioningly. "What, no accent, jumping up and down in place or anything?"

I snapped my head up at him. "What?"

The confusion in his eyes grew deeper. "You're usually all excited around this guy."

"Oh… n-no, I'm just…. Thinking."

"About what?"

I rolled my eyes. "Do you really have to ask?"

I had once again managed to redden the agent's cheeks. It was true, though. Just the mere thought of it made my lips tingle, begging for his presence again, and that didn't really help the fact that I already had to fight the urge every second to throw myself on him, back him up against the nearest wall and have my way with him. Not that he wouldn't be able to stop me if I tried— do I need to bring up his muscles again?— I just wanted him so badly, I'm not going to lie, that's probably what would happen if I had the chance.

Apparently, the merchant had heard our conversation, and picked up on the fact that I was staring off into space while biting my lip, because he was giving Leon and I the biggest sly grin I'd ever seen in my life. It made it even creepier, though, because you couldn't see his mouth; he was wearing a bandana on his face. You could just see it in his eyes, and once I noticed I immediately snapped out of it, hoping Leon hadn't seen.

After the agent had finished negotiating with the man, he turned to me.

"Anything you want?"

I felt like I was five years old and in a candy store with a handful of twenties. "Well… my own _Blacktail_ would be nice, since I've had to use yours for a while…"

"It's your lucky day… I just so happen to have one last _Blacktail_ in stock."

Leon handed the man just enough money and stuck the gun in his holster.

"You keep that one," he said. "It's got more upgrades than this one."

A smile worked its way across my lips. "Thanks."

He stared back at me, smiling, for a second before his eyes flashed to my lips for a split second before he turned and began walking away. I couldn't help but smile to myself as I followed him.

We walked through two giant double doors and began walking down another dirt carved hallway. Once again, everything seemed to be built over a giant trench, except this one was ten times bigger than the one in the village. There was bridge over a seven foot gap, leading to another hallway, but it was only about three feet wide, and there were no rails. Leon carefully walked over, but I followed him with extreme hesitation. One look over the side told me that if I fell, that'd be it.

"One step in front of the other, Em."

I nodded and slowly stepped off the bridge.

"You ready?" He asked, taking in consideration how tentative I was.

"It's not that I'm afraid of heights or anything…" I explained. "That's just a _long_ drop…"

"Yeah."

We continued walking through the other hallway and started at what it led to: another _huge_ trench, but this time there were three large container rigs hanging over it, connected to chains dangling from the ceiling.

I turned to Leon, fear visible in my eyes. "Leon, _please_ tell me we won't have to go through that."

He shook his head. "No, it looks like there's a lift over there."

I sighed in relief and we began walking towards it.

But just as we were about to reach it, Leon stopped and looked at something beeping in a puddle of water. It was flashing red, and was about the size of a dime.

"Ashley…" He whispered.

"What is that thing?" I asked, looking in confusion at the device.

"It's a tracker. I threw it on Ashley before Saddler took her away. I guess he saw it though and took it off…"

"Well, it is beeping pretty loud…" I said honestly. "That must've gotten annoying after a while."

Before he could respond, the walls behind us shook and we turned around in shock as the shakes worsened. Leon quickly grabbed my hand, and, before I could freak out about it, began sprinting for one of the container rigs.

"What about the lift?!" I shouted, barely being able to keep up with him.

"It's on the other side; we can't get to it from here!"

We jumped onto the first rig (well, more like _he_ jumped and pulled me along with him) just as a giant, mutant creature burst out of the wall and onto the rig after us.

While it has the upper part of a human torso and a human head, its appearance was horrifying and marked by strange scars all over its head, a clawed arm, and a tentacle in place of the other one. Below that, the rest of his body turned into a centaur-like deformed body that has two front legs and two hind ones bonded by a centipede-like fleshy piece of muscle. He had a long, serpent like tongue that kept swishing around everywhere and dirty, brown-ish stained teeth. When he landed, he took two steps forward and roared. My eyes were wide and Leon quickly took out his _Striker_ and began shot gunning the giant thing in the head. This made it mad, or just irritated, and it jumped up and out of sight, but not for long.

"Here, take this." He tossed me his _TMP_ and three hundred bullets to go with it.

"What, wha—"I didn't have time to finish my question because he had grabbed my hand again, turned around, and began walking around the rig. "I'm going to go back behind this shutter and press one of the emergency buttons, you're going to hop this fence and press that one. It will save us time and ammunition."

"Okay, two questions. One: How do you expect me to get over that gate when it's taller than _you_, and two: how on earth do you know what to do?"

"I saw everything before we jumped on. There are doors that you get through, and my guess is that once you press both buttons, they open. Now come on, I'll give you a boost."

He lifted me up and helped me over the fence that had a button and a giant red door.

"Okay, you press that and I'll press the other one and run back as quick as I can. If that thing shows up, shoot it with what I gave you; it's fully upgraded."

I nodded weakly, and when he turned around I called out, "Leon, wait. What if you get killed or something?"

He thought about it for a second, and with a smile he said, "I'll try my best not to." He then turned around and was gone.

_That's all for this update, folks! As I said, I'm in the process of working up another multi-chapter fic. Not gonna say what it is yet though. You'll just have to wait and see. Thanks for reading. See you next time! _


	41. Chapter 41

_Well, here's the next 3 chapters. I hope you enjoy. _

The thing never showed up by me, I guessed he was too distracted by the hot guy running around. I pressed the button and it stopped flashing. A few seconds later, an alarm was sounded and the whole container-rig started shaking, but just enough to feel it.

"Leon…?" I shouted out, panic clear in my voice.

Just then, I heard a shot-gun, and the shutter next to me opened, followed by Leon, who was then followed by It.

"Leon, hurry!"

He ran up to the door, pulled it open, and the second we ran through, the one behind us dropped. One down, two to go.

"Did that thing fall, too?" I asked Leon as he was reloading his shotgun.

"I doubt it," he said and began looking for the way to go. We went forward and turned right, but that was a bad move. Suddenly, the creature jumped down from the roof right in front of us. But, not to worry- Leon and I just shot it until it ran away again.

Just like last time, there were two red buttons to push and they were both behind shutters. Leon and I both went different directions, and once again I got the one closest to the door; all I had to do was round a corner and I was there, but I waited for Leon before opening it.

"Last one." I said after taking a deep breath, and we stepped onto the final rig.

He walked over to a button that was right by the front door and pressing it opened a shutter, revealing a long dark hallway.

But before we could enter it, the creature dropped down from the roof once more to reveal a giant tentacle that had sprouted from its back. It had a gaping mouth, lined with dozens of teeth. This tentacle also sported a very heavy pair of pincers, which acted as giant scissors and were most likely used to slice us in half.

Leon quickly threw out a Flash grenade, temporarily blinding the monster, grabbed my hand again, and bolted for the newly revealed hallway. The hallway led straight to the door, but there wasn't a button anywhere to be found.

"Well what do we do?" I asked.

"Hold on…" We kept walking left and found a shiny green button. Leon shot at it and a shutter from the other side of the rig opened up. We ran back through the hallway, turned right, and there it was. Leon pressed the button, and we sprinted back down the hallway. He kept grabbing my hand, making me blush and wonder if he did it so I could keep up with him, or so he wouldn't lose track of me.

When we got to the door, Leon opened it and it lead to a balcony overlooking the deep abyss. There was a hook connected to a very long, fragile looking chain in front of it.

"Wh-where do we go now?" I asked, absent-mindedly squeezing his hand tighter.

Apparently, that gave him an idea. "Have you seen any James Bond movies?"

"Well, yeah but… what does that have to do with anything?" I looked up at him in confusion.

He grinned at me, squeezed my hand tightly, and said, "Just don't let go."

Suddenly we were running, and then we were in the air. Leon had jumped off the balcony, and grabbed the hook just before the container-rig dropped deep into the never-ending chasm below. I hadn't let go of his hand like he told me to, so at that moment, he was the literally the only thing keeping me alive. If he let go, that was it. I'd fall to my inevitable death.

"Smart move," I said, not being able to keep the panic out of my voice. I was literally dangling below him and had to crane my neck upwards to meet his eyes. "Now uh… how exactly do you plan to get down from here?"

Apparently, he was stronger than I thought. He pulled me up with his one arm, the other hanging onto the chain, and held me close to him so I wouldn't fall.

Of course, my face was completely flushed, but that didn't stop me from being terrified of what was about to happen next.

"Just hold on tight." At those words, I wrapped my arms around his torso, buried my face into the side of his chest, and held on for my life as he swung the chain back and forth, and then let go. Those three seconds we were free falling in the air, I had squeezed him harder than I thought possible, probably leaving nail marks in his skin. But then we were safe on the ground, and I was still holding onto him.

After catching his balance he looked down at me. "You can let go now."

"Are we on the ground?" I asked, not looking up at him because my eyes were shut tight.

He chuckled. "Yes, we're on the ground."

I opened one eye, then the other, and then reluctantly let go of the man who had potentially just saved my life. Who knew what could have happened if that stunt didn't work?

I slowed my heart rate and looked up at Leon. "Don't you _ever_ do _anything_ like that again."

He laughed loudly. "Come on, it seemed like you were having a great time."

"We could have _died_! Why don't you leave stuff like that to James Bond?"

He laughed again. "Alright, come on." We began walking towards a grey door, but then a loud roaring came from the trench as the monster scaled the walls, climbing back up for revenge.

This time, Leon practically ripped my arm off as he grabbed my hand and began sprinting forward; ignoring the door we were headed for a few seconds ago. I couldn't keep up with him, and I felt like my legs were about to break off. 'It' jumped at us, just barely missing, and then bars shot down from an arch in the rocks, blocking us from going back. This area was pretty small, with a tunnel to the left that simply curved back around, a giant rock in the middle of the area, and only ten feet from said rock was a cliff.

"What do we do?!" I shouted as we ran through the tunnel, away from the creature.

Leon quickly pulled out a magnum, receiving wide eyes from me, and began shooting the thing on the tentacle's mouth.

"Where'd you get that?!" I shouted, pumping _TMP_ bullets along with Leon's shiny new magnum.

"At the Merchant guy, earlier, while you were off in your little daze."

I froze. My cheeks were crimson red, and my finger relieved itself off the trigger for a split second. Turned out, that split second was just long enough for the monster to escape, burrowing underground and vanishing from sight.

We were silent and stiff as boards. That thing could show up at any time, in any place.

After about four seconds I looked up at Leon. "Is he gon—"

Suddenly a strong force pushed up and forward, coming from behind me, and I was shoved forward, screaming, into the man I was speaking to. He caught me just in time and stood me upright as it burrowed itself again. The things pincers kept shooting out of the ground, and we ran out of the tunnel, dodging the lethal attacks. There was a flammable barrel right next to the boulder and that, apparently, gave Leon an idea.

"Come on!" The agent shouted, grabbing my hand roughly and sprinting forward. I swear I was going to have bruises after that.

We ran behind the boulder and the barrel and waited until the monster was right in front of it to shoot the barrel and make it go up in flames. That stunned the creature just long enough for Leon and I to keep shooting it. M with the _TMP_ shooting the pincer, and Leon and his Magnum shooting his head. In just five seconds, the thing was shrieking in pain, and it collapsed to the floor.

"I-is it dead?" I asked, taking a few steps back just in case.

Just then the bars trapping us in the little area rose.

"Yeah I think so." Leon said with a nod.

We reloaded all of the guns and I handed him his _TMP_ back before walking back to the grey door we couldn't get to before. As soon as we started walking back I smirked and looked up at the tall man beside me.

"What, you're not gonna hold my hand this time?"

"Hey, I had to or else you would have gotten cut in half by that thing."

I laughed. "Yeah, and thanks for that and everything, but I think you could have been a _bit_ more gentle."

He smirked at me as he opened the door. "I'll keep that in mind."


	42. Chapter 42

"Where does this tunnel lead, exactly?"

Leon and I had found ourselves in a giant tent covering a hole with a ladder in it. He had suggested hopping down because he thought it lead somewhere important.

"I told you, there's an opening by a building behind that fence."

I nodded and jumped down the ladder, landing in what looked like an underground mine shaft. I waited for him to jump down too before proceeding forward. I kept having the strange urge to grab his hand again but I knew I better not. Like he said, it was only so that thing wouldn't get me. Even so, my hand felt lonely after that. But so did my lips… I guess I just wanted _him_.

At the end of the tunnel, there was another ladder and the Merchant. This time, I handed him my _Blacktail_ and asked for the last few upgrades. After we finished that, Leon climbed up the ladder first, then me, and we began walking towards the building and opened the doors.

It wasn't actually a building, simply leading to an area that lead to more buildings, except these were old and starting to crumble. It looked like another section to Salazar's castle.

We hopped down a ledge and began walking forward in front of giant broken columns, when Krauser emerged from on top of a building beside us.

"So… when are you going to introduce me to this little lady?" Krauser asked, looking directly at me.

"Where's Ashley?" Leon hollered, pushing me behind him.

"Protective much, are we?" He said with a smirk, and then his face turned serious. "She's beyond that gate." He nodded his head towards a 'gate' that wasn't visible from where we were standing. "But you'll need three insignia's to get in." We looked at him questioningly and he continued. "One's in the North, the other's in the East."

"And let me guess," Leon interrupted. "You got the last one."

He grunted. "Pretty much means you're on a tight leash."

"Sounds like you got this sorted out pretty well…"

Before Krauser could respond, Leon pulled out a grenade and threw it in Krauser's direction, but he dodged it just before it hit him.

Suddenly, he pulled out a _TMP_ and began shooting at us. Quicker than lightning, Leon grabbed me and dove on top of me just before the bullets hit us. He carefully stood up as much as he could, which was just a crouching position, and helped me up too. Before I could think about it, we were up and running towards a small building to our left. There was a ladder in it and a barred, electrically locked door.

"You okay?" Leon asked me hastily.

Oh yeah, it's not like the man I'm madly in love with was just _on top_ of me or anything. But of course, I didn't say that. I just nodded quickly and then we heard a loud _BANG!_ from behind us. Krauser had burst open the door and was shooting lazily around the room. Leon practically threw me up the ladder, grabbing my sides and heaving me up before I could even acknowledge the fact that there was a psychotic man in the same room as us.

The ladder was just a dead end up to the roof, and when Leon followed me up I stared at him. He had a small gash on his left arm that was bleeding just enough to seep out of the wound.

"Why the _hell_ is he trying to kill you?!" I demanded, a mixture of panic and anger in my voice.

"Saddler's orders." His reply came back breathlessly.

Before I could respond, we heard a loud beep from down stairs: the door was open. Leon jumped down first, and then motioned for me; Krauser was nowhere to be seen.

"Come on." He said and I jumped down from the ladder.

The door opened to a part of the building that seemed to have been blown away. There were chunks missing in various walls, creating a sort of path to the back wall. We began walking forward, when all of the sudden Krauser jumped out from behind one of the walls and grabbed Leon from behind, his knife at Leon's throat.

"Go!" Leon shouted, struggling to keep the maniac off him.

I hesitated. I mean, there had to be something I could do, right?

"_GO_!" He yelled, making me flinch before sprinting towards the stairs I saw out of the corner of my eye. I ran into a corner and sat there, with my knees pulled up to my chest. There was a wall beside me with three holes in it, but I wasn't paying attention to that. Leon could be dead, and I didn't do anything. Of course, he had told me to run but that didn't mean I should have. I swore to myself that if there was a next time Krauser popped out like that, I'd do something.

A few seconds later, Leon walked around the corner and I jumped up quickly.

"A-are you alright? Did he hurt you?" Now I was the one spamming him with questions.

"I'm fine. Now come on."

We walked back up the stairs and headed straight this time. There was a bridge with more broken columns on the side of it. I guessed this was where Krauser was standing before because I could see the bullet holes in a building down in front of us. We slowly crept along the stone until we reached a building. After scaling the sides, we continued past it and found more stairs. These stairs led to a room with half of it blocked by rubble almost as tall as me, and a winding staircase in front of us. As soon as we walked up the stairs, Leon stopped and picked up what looked like an insignia shaped like a panther. Then Krauser walked out, holding his knife.

"What do you intend to do restoring Umbrella?" Leon asked with caution, pushing me behind him _yet again_.

"Bring order and balance to this insane world of ours." They kept circling each other slowly, and I stayed as close to Leon as I could.

"A psycho like you can't bring order or balance."

_My thoughts exactly, Leon._

"You don't seriously think your conservative mind can chart a new course for the world, do you?" He retorted, although I wasn't necessarily sure what that was supposed to mean.

Suddenly bars shot down in front of the stairs we came from so we couldn't escape, and Krauser did another anti-gravity backflip onto some stone serving as a roof over a few pillars.

"What are you fighting for?" He asked Leon.

But before he could answer, I spoke up. "Well what are _you_ fighting for?!" I was tired of being shot at by a guy I didn't even _know_.

"This doesn't concern you!" He shouted.

Leon was warning me with his eyes again.

I ignored him and spoke quickly. "Are you _serious?!_ You're _shooting_ at us! I could _die!_ How does this _not _concern me?!"

"I'm not shooting _you;_ I'm shooting Pretty Boy over there." He pointed his gun towards Leon.

"Oh, you're just jealous 'cause he's better looking than you." I didn't say those words very loudly, but they seemed to echo and I immediately regret saying them. Krauser gave me a death glare and after Leon had collected himself from staring at me in horror, he was giving Krauser a glare of his own.

The man laughed horribly. "Oh you should not have said that, little girl."

He pulled his gun out again and aimed it right for me.


	43. Chapter 43

Just as he pulled the trigger, Leon shoved me a few feet to the left making me fall and almost slam my head against the hard stone. The agent had immediately pulled out his own _TMP_ and began shooting at Krauser making his accuracy drop dramatically. Finally, the man left again leaving Leon and I alone.

"What the hell were you thinking?!" He was furious. You'd think he'd be grateful for such a great compliment, but _noo…_

"I-I'm sorry, I didn't—"

"_Sorry?!_ Do you realize what this _means?!_ Now he's gonna be after you too!"

"All I said was that one _little_ thing! Why would he want to kill me for that?!"

"That's all it takes with him." He spoke seriously. "You should have just stayed out of it."

"'Stayed out of it'?! He almost killed me trying to kill you! How do you expect me to just not say anything?!"

"At least he wasn't aiming for you then!"

"Why does it even matter to you?!" I was angry, but I didn't really understand why at the time.

He sighed. I could hear in his voice how carefully he was trying to form his next sentence. "If you think I don't care whether you die or not… You'd be wrong."

My eyes went wide for a split second before I looked at him in confusion. "Well, w-what's that supposed to mean?"

He sighed again. "It means I don't want you killed."

I paused for a second. "And you think I want _you_ killed? Leon, how do you think I feel every time you tell me to run away or something while _you_ stay behind and fight whatever, or _who_ever is trying to kill you?! It's not a very good feeling considering—" I stopped mid-sentence, catching myself as I was about to reveal my feelings for him. Even if he already suspected it, I didn't want him to know yet.

"Considering…?" He asked inquiringly.

"U-uh… How well you've taken care of me, you know?" I was a terrible liar. "I-I don't like leaving you without help…"

He totally didn't buy it. "Okay… Whatever. Just promise me you won't do anything like that again."

I thought for a moment. "I'll try my best not to."

He nodded, a small smile forming on his lips, but he quickly hid it. "That's good enough for me."

My cheeks burned red and I tried to hide my widening grin as Leon pushed a statue I hadn't even noticed on a pressure plate that raised bars over a lever beside the door. He quickly pulled the lever and we headed back down the stairs. I followed Leon as he rushed back to the empty building we passed earlier and apparently there had been another lever there that opened a door in the wall beside the bridge. After Leon pulled it, the door opened and there was a ten foot drop down to a lower level. I jumped down after him and when we proceeded forward, we were stopped by tiny _robots_.

"What the hell?" I asked, pulling my gun out. I shot the closest one and it fell over on its side and exploded.

"Alright, come on." Leon said, walking past me and the broken robot parts.

There was another one up in the air, and as soon as it started beeping Leon shot it, making it blow-up just like its friends. We continued walking, shooting two angry robots in a hallway, and stopped when we reached a giant stone tower, with a staircase winding all the way up the inside of it.

"You should stay here." Leon warned, looking at the suspicious stone walls.

"I thought I said I wanted to go with you." I looked sternly into his hard eyes.

"No, you said you didn't like running away." He held my stare, and when I didn't look away he continued. "I don't want you going up there. You've seen how dangerous Krauser can be; I don't want you getting hurt."

"Well I'm not letting you go up there by yourself." I walked up to him and stood still in front of him. He knew I was stubborn, but that didn't stop him from trying to convince me to change my mind. When he didn't say anything, I spoke up first. "Now, do I have to kiss you again to prove my point, or are you going to let me come with you?" I spoke it like a threat, but my eyes probably told him how badly I wanted to.

To my absolute surprise, he scoffed and a grin formed on his face. "You're really stubborn, you know that?"

I smirked. "So I've been told."

He just shook his head. "Just come on."

As soon as we stepped onto the first stair, metal bars shot down in front of the tower entrance. Leon looked at me dolefully before we continued up the steps.

At the top, there was a blocked doorway to the area I ran to earlier, and a ladder. We were forced to go up the ladder, Leon went first and then allowed me to go, his eyes full of regret. When we got to the top, I realized how small the area was. There were a few boards nailed together serving as walkways, and a bridge connecting the tower we were standing on to another one. We carefully walked over to one of the boarded floors and Leon picked up the second of the three insignias.

Just as we began walking back, the agent stopped and looked up: Krauser was standing on top of one of the broken walls. "Two down, one more to go Krauser." He said.

The man grunted. "We'll see about that." He tossed his gun to the side and we looked up at him, wondering what his next move would be.

It definitely wasn't what I was expecting. He held out his left arm and began groaning in pain. His arm began mutating into a giant bladed claw and Leon and I started in horror as he shouted, "Witness the power!" I was strangely reminded of _He-Man_, a show I used to watch as a kid.

"You've lost it completely, Krauser." Leon said, completely ignoring the fact that the already psychotic man now had a giant _blade_ in his _arm_.

"Prepare for your death, Leon." He said as he jumped down from the wall, blade ready to slice the blonde man in half.

"No!" I screamed, but it didn't do anything. Leon was now dangling off the side of the tower with Krauser stepping on his fingers. That gave me an idea; he was completely vulnerable.

I ran, picked up Krauser's discarded _TMP, _and began pumping him full of led. He swung his head around and looked at me with his eyes full of malice. The insanely pissed off man left Leon alone and dashed towards me, leaping in the air, and swinging his lethal arm down straight at me.

I leapt out of the way just in time and stood up quickly to see Leon shooting Krauser's back with his magnum.

Suddenly we heard a loud beeping coming from under us. Had Krauser rigged the place with bombs? He laughed loudly and dashed straight for Leon. I shot at him with the _TMP_ again.

He looked torn between two to try and kill first, and picked me.

"You seem kind of fond of her, Leon." He slowly began walking towards me. "I wonder how nice her blood will look spilled on this stone."

I squeezed my eyes shut and blocked my face with my arms, even though it would do nothing once that blade touched my skin.

But then, I heard the sounds of an explosion and peeked open my eyes to see dying flames and Leon standing over Krauser's body, catching his breath and holding the last insignia. There was an empty Rocket Launcher on the floor beside him.

I stood up and walked over to him, standing on the other side of the dead man. "I-is that thing your answer for everything?" I said it with a smile, but my voice had suddenly become shaky and my eyes started to burn.

He didn't answer me, he just grabbed my hand again and we began sprinting back to the wall with the three holes in it. Leon jumped down the ladder and held his arms out to catch me. I guessed it was because he thought it would be quicker. The door with the bars was open and it led straight to the wall we needed.

There was about a minute left before the bombs went off and Leon and I were very hastily placing the insignia's in their correct places. Much to my relief, the wall slid back and revealed two doors, which we burst through like two children at the grand opening of a toy store.

_Sorry guys, no more for tonight! Unless you're from the future where I've already updated again... Anyways! I gotta go get working on my next story. I had some inspiration while driving to the store today. Hooray for random bursts of inspiration! Well that's all I have to say. See you tomorrow, guys!_


	44. Chapter 44

_Hey guys, here are the next three chapters! Guess what happened to me yesterday? My laptop died! I swear I have the worst luck in the world. Good thing I keep all my stories on a flash drive. I'm updating this from my moms computer and for now I'm just gonna have to keep working on the next story in a journal or something. Thanks for sticking around and I hope you like the chapters! Enjoy!_

Once we were safely on the other side, and heard the explosion, I leapt up and hugged the living daylights out of him.

"I'm glad you're okay." I whispered into his chest.

"Me? You're the one who almost got sliced in half." He said with a light chuckle, but I could detect the seriousness hidden in his tone.

I pulled away. "Yeah… thanks for that." A thought suddenly crossed my mind and I smirked at him. "But you know… you could have just picked the first option and made things a lot easier for the both of us."

He sighed and stepped back a step, as if he could read my thoughts. "Yeah, well I have a feeling you would have just gone with me anyways."

I shrugged. "Probably."

"See?" His voice lightened considerably. "Now come on. I have a feeling this is almost over."

We began walking up the hill when all of the sudden, Leon pulled me behind a large cargo box and put his hand over my mouth. I looked up at him quizzically and he removed his hand to place a finger on his own lips. I understood and hushed immediately. By the sound of it, there was a numerous amount of Ganado in the area behind us.

Suddenly, a blinding white light came shining down from above. Leon pulled out a headset and began speaking into it at what I now realized was a helicopter.

"Hey… it's about time." He said, the relief clears in his voice.

"Sorry, bad traffic." He joked. "I'll cover ya'."

The man flew the helicopter around and began knocking over a large water tower, making it fall and kill only a fraction of the men standing around, but he wasn't done; he pulled out Gatling guns and began firing away. In mere seconds, almost everyone was dead and we stared up at the helicopter in awe.

"Now that's what I call backup." Leon spoke into the headset with a large grin on his face.

"The name's Mike. If you're looking for firepower, you've come to the right place."

We started running and three guys popped out of a fort. One was on top with a gatling gun, and two inside with crossbows making me wonder where they got that stuff—the merchant certainly didn't sell them. Leon and I ran and hid behind a wall a few feet from the fort, dodging their attacks and reloading our guns. Before we could make our next move, Mike had blown up the fort along with the people in it.

"Okay, I'm starting to really like this guy." I said smiling up at Leon.

He smiled back. "Me too, come on."

Once again we had begun sprinting forward. There were a couple of people up a ladder and standing on some sort of lookout balcony. Leon shot them all down with his _TMP_ and we ran over a metal bridge and into a vacant building and out a door to our left. There was a large, locked shutter and a lever above it a few feet away. To get to said lever, you had to run up a flight of wooden stairs and go down a short zip line.

"You stay here, I'll go pull that." He said, but before he could leave, a Gatling gun guy jumped down right in front of the lever. Leon didn't even need to do anything; Mike shot him down for us.

"Be careful!" I called after him as he began running for the stairs.

Those few seconds I was left alone, I kept thinking about the kiss and how he avoided talking about it every chance he got. He had kissed me back, but what if that was only because he thought I needed comforting?

Before my thoughts could progress, I heard Leon call my name from in front of the door. I quickly ran down to him but before entering, we took quick glances at the newly exposed area. There were two levels; the ground, of course, which was cluttered with mini forts and two giant Gatling guns, and walkways all around the walls. There were doors on the back wall and two levers on opposite sides of the walkways.

I turned to Leon who was contemplating his next move beside me, but I had already figured out what we needed to do. "Give me your _TMP_." I said holding out my hands expectantly.

He looked at me like I was insane. "What, why?"

"There are two ladders over there." I pointed to the left. "The one in there goes to the right lever, and the one next to it goes to the left one. Now I'll need your TMP because my puny little Blacktail isn't enough to take out all the guys over there." I pointed to the right upper level. There was a guy with a gatling gun, and a guy with a bow gun. I kept my hands out and my eyebrows raised.

He sighed and handed me the gun. "I thought you said you didn't like leaving me."

I looked at him and, without blinking, said, "I didn't. I said I didn't like leaving you if I could help. But this time I'm leaving _to_ help. Get it?"

He looked as though he were about to tell me not to go, but shook his head. "Sure. Just be careful."

I grinned at him as we were walking to our ladders. "You too."

I didn't do much. Just took out a few guys on the upper half of the shelter covering the ladder, and once I stepped out, I saw Leon and Mike had already taken out most of everybody. Once I got to the barred doors blocking the lever, another muscled man with a gatling gun jumped down from some place I couldn't see. I began shooting him in the head with the gun Leon had loaned me, and once he was stunned, Leon shouted from the other side of the area. "Get back!" he yelled. I did as I was told and Leon threw a grenade at the guy. Once he recovered from that, Leon began shooting him with his semi-automatic rifle as I shot him with the _TMP_. He was dead within seconds, and we both ran over to the levers and pulled them, opening the doors below.

"Nice job." He said, nodding slightly when we met back at the bottom of the ladders.

"Thanks… even though I barely did anything."

"You did enough."

After we opened the doors, we began walking up stairs onto the top of a cliff overlooking the ocean we traveled across to get here from the castle, which, if you squinted hard enough, you could just make out in the distance. We kept running up the stairs and didn't stop until it was too late; we had run straight into a mass of the parasite controlled freaks. They were armed with lightning rods, spiked sticks, and scythes.

As soon as I reached for my gun, we heard the sound of helicopter blades, and Mike flew up in front of us, guns raised. "_Take cover!"_ He shouted, and Leon quickly pulled me out of the way, behind a large stone pillar.

Mike was shooting everyone. There were body parts flying everywhere, and dead bodies all over the ground. He only stopped shooting when there was one guy left; but a falling pillar took care of him. Leon quickly hopped up and stood out in the open, facing the helicopter, but I stayed put, leaning against the stone.

"Thanks," he said. "When we get out of here, drinks are on me."

I never got to hear Mike's response. Before anybody moved, a missile was fired straight for the helicopter. The aircraft was engulfed in flames and metal parts were flying everywhere.

"_MIKE!_" Leon bellowed and sprinted to the edge of the cliff where his friend had fallen to his death. All I could do was stare in shock.

Just then Leon got a transmission from Saddler, but the only thing I heard him say was "Saddler, you _bastard!_" and then something about insects.

After he hung up, he walked slowly over to me.

"You okay?" He asked, holding out a gloved hand. He spoke the exact same way he did before I kissed him. I took his hand and he helped me stand up. I could feel his eyes on me, but I couldn't stop staring at where the helicopter had once flown. That wasn't even two minutes ago, but now he was gone.

"I-is he really gone?" I asked, looking up at the blonde in front of me with water-filled eyes. I know we just met him, but realizing how little time it took death to do its job sent an uncomfortable wave of emotion spiraling through me.

"Yeah…" Leon kept looking at me, his eyes glazed with sorrow. "But come on. There's nothing we can do now, except get these parasites out of us."

As we were walking towards doors in the distance, I couldn't help but notice he still had his hand wrapped around mine, but—hey, I wasn't complaining.


	45. Chapter 45

The doors led to an even more run down place, with stone and dirt everywhere and a building that looked like it would crumble at any second. As soon as we stepped through the doorway, Leon hunched over in pain and began coughing, much like I did before I got caught in that trap, but worse.

"Leon… are you okay?" I walked up to him hesitantly, placing my hand on his back, but that just made him flinch and take a few steps away from me.

"I'm fine…" He spat through coughs.

"N-no you're not… Leon… come on… you can't do this to me now…" My eyes were flooding with water and I tried my best to hold the salty tears back.

But suddenly, Leon got over his coughing fit and stood up slowly. When he turned back around, something about him didn't seem… right. He was walking towards me, his eyes full of determination, and when he brought his hands up, I was half expecting him to kiss me, but that's not what happened at all. He wrapped both his hands around my neck and squeezed hard. I couldn't breathe, beg him to stop, or ask him why he was doing this, just hope and pray that he would come to his senses and snap out of it.

Just when I thought I was about to lose consciousness from lack of oxygen, he suddenly let go and collapsed to the floor, but not before I did. I was on my knees, gasping for breath and coughing up blood. I was confused; why did he act like that so suddenly, and what made him stop?

After I had caught my breath, I looked up to see Leon standing there, wide eyed and panicked looking.

"E-Emily… I'm so sorry, I didn't—" He reached down to touch me, but I backed away immediately, trying to get away from him. That hurt like hell, and I didn't want him anywhere near me. I honestly didn't care if it was the parasite that had controlled him, I was scared.

Once I was safely on the other side of the room, the woman in the red dress stepped forward. The blonde man looked like he had just kicked an innocent puppy, but I didn't care.

"Just give her time, Leon." She said, crossing her arms and looking back at me for a second before turning to him again. "We have to get that parasite out of your body."

He didn't say anything, and Ada left. I was still on the floor five minutes later, my hands gently touching the skin on my neck; it was sore and tender to the touch. Leon was observing me almost the entire time. I couldn't tell what he was thinking, but he looked remorseful. I stood up, wiping away at my damp cheeks and walked straight past him, and headed for a door to his left.

"Emily, wait." He called out, sounding desperate and demanding at the same time.

"Leon, no… I can't." My voice was shaky and tears threatened to spill from my eyes again.

Without another word, I pushed my way through the door. He knew I needed space, and that's exactly what he gave me. Well, as much as he could without putting either of us in danger, which happened to be about five feet.

We arrived at a very rusted door and Leon held up his hand as a signal to wait and let him enter first, but I instinctively flinched. I knew he wouldn't purposely do anything to hurt me, and the look on his face confirmed that, but like I said, I needed time.

After entering the door, we took a look around the area and noticed how _old_ everything looked. Not like the crumbly and dusty kind like the buildings outside, everything was just so _rusty_. We took a few steps forward and Leon suddenly stopped and signaled me to wait. We listened very closely and my eyes widened at the sound we heard: heavy, shaky breathing coming from just around the corner. I immediately recognized it as a Regenerator.

"L-Leon…?" I looked up at the man and he scarcely nodded before pulling out his _TMP_.

He put up a tough fight, regenerating his limbs every time Leon shot one off, but that's just what they did. Finally, it took enough damage to where the entire upper half of its body burst, leaving the legs to limply fall to the floor.

"Okay, let's go." He said and we began walking forward. There was a door up a few steps on its own little section, but the stairs were broken. We walked over to the side of the stairs and Leon pulled himself up in front of the door. He held out his hand for me and after I hesitantly took it, he pulled me up with him.

We entered the door and rounded a corner, facing about ten people with lightning rods and crossbows. Three of them were hidden behind forts, including a crossbow guy. It seemed like the whole area had two levels, again. The floor, and up a ladder there were multiple rooms that we couldn't see. As soon as we stepped forward two feet, a Gatling gun freak emerged from one of the rooms and began trying to shoot at Leon and I. We ran back around the corner and a few minutes later, so did he. Leon threw a few grenades in his direction and he died after a few shotgun rounds

. We headed back into the main area and began walking to two big doors at the end of a hallway, but as soon as we reached it the locks suddenly turned red and a loud buzzing sound was heard. Apparently those guys were smart enough to lock us out from wherever we needed to go.

"Well what do we do now?" I asked the man beside me.

He began walking back up the hallway. "Come on. I think I saw a guy carrying a card key earlier."

Turned out, he was right. As soon as we rounded the corner again, about fifteen people were there and once Leon had obliterated all of them, a silver card key was left. After we cleared everyone else out, we climbed up a ladder, and into a room. On the back wall there was a slot where the card key needed to be inserted. Once Leon put it in, there was another buzzing sound. We continued walking around for a few more minutes until we found more ladders, each leading to a button that, when both pressed, would unlock the door.

I kept glancing up at Leon, still not being able to read his emotions. I felt horrible. I mean, I knew he would never do anything like that willingly, and it was probably the parasite controlling him, but that hurt… physically and emotionally.

He opened the doors and they led to another hallway. There were two guys with shields in it, and after three shotgun shells, they were gone. There were more doors at the end, but I stopped before he opened them.

He turned around and looked at me questioningly. "Are you alright?" He asked.

"I'm sorry…" I said quietly, looking down at the ground. "I know that wasn't your fault, and I probably overreacted… I was just scared."

"I know." His deep voice came in reply. "But I _promise_ I will _never_ hurt you again. Not 'try my best not to,' no, I _promise_. Okay? So are we good?"

I smiled up at him and nodded, glad things were back to normal, and he pushed the heavy doors open.

My eyes widened at what was in front of us. It was Ashley, but she was sealed in a sort of cryogenic chamber, barely conscious. Leon and I rushed forward but stopped immediately when we heard that thick, creepy voice we both dreaded.

"You'll both soon harbor and awesome power… Yet it seems you would rather choose death." Saddler said, emerging from what seemed like out of thin air.

"I'm taking these girls back whether you like it or not." Leon snapped back.

Saddler sighed dreamily. "Oh, the audacity of youth…" Suddenly he ran up at a nearly impossible speed, and before I knew it, we were in the air. Saddler had shoved us back, putting an extremely painful amount of force on our chests. We were both rammed into Ashley's container and fell to the floor, groaning and coughing in pain. Luckily, I had Leon to break my fall—not so lucky for him though.

We were still just managing to move when Saddler began walking forward with his hand outstretched, and I had just enough time for fear to flood through me, remembering the overwhelming pain that had consumed my body, when suddenly he stopped and I could hear rapid gunshots. Leon and I quickly jumped up and looked to our left to see Ada holding a _TMP_.

"Leon, now!" She shouted and Leon nodded and pressed a button on the door of what Ashley was being held in. The light turned green and she was lowered and the door was opened, releasing a lot of air pressure. Leon and I quickly grabbed a hold of the blonde and began hastily making our way out of there.


	46. Chapter 46

Before anyone could say anything, there were the sounds of explosions and we turned around to see fire and rubble blocking our way back.

Ashley was coughing and gasping in Leon's arms. She looked weak, as if that chamber was draining the life out of her… I guess in a way it sort of was.

"Here… take this." Leon handed her a mixture of Red, Green, and Yellow herbs, and a few of those pills. He helped her swallow them and I watched observantly. He was so gentle, and she looked so fragile; it was sweet, really. Maybe she really was supposed to be with him instead of me. I couldn't think of anything to say, other than asking if she was alright, but Leon had beaten me to it.

"You ready?" He asked quietly and once Ashley nodded weakly we opened the doors and exited the building.

The Merchant was standing outside, his blue torch burning brightly in the breaking dawn. We simply bypassed him, not being in the mood to sell, buy, or question anything about him, and continued on down the path. There was a door in which we walked through, reentering the building. There were two big armored men guarding a large door, but once Leon took out those guys we quickly stepped into the room.

There was a dentist looking chair with robotic arms pointing at it. I immediately knew what it was.

"This hunk o' junk?" Ashley spoke, looking skeptically at the machine. "I- I don't know about this, Leon."

I nodded. "I have to agree with her on this one."

"There's only one way to find out." He said, moving over to the front of the chair. "You operate." He pointed to a control pad over in the side of the room and Ashley rushed over to it and pressed a button strapping Leon's wrists to the arms of the chair, and moving the robot arms so that they were pointed at his abdomen and glowing a bright purple.

Ashley was operating and Leon was having radioactive surgery done on his insides. All I could do was stand and watch as Ashley looked one last time at our rescuer.

"You sure you wanna do this?" She asked, her finger hovering over a bright red button labeled 'operate'.

"Yeah." He replied. He sounded nervous, like he was about to ride the biggest roller coaster in an amusement park, but he wasn't about to back out when he was so close.

"Alright, here goes nothing."

All I heard was the button being pressed and Leon's groans of pain. I had my eyes shut so tight I was seeing designs on the back of my eyelids. I knew it had to hurt, there was a chance of death, but it still came as a shock to me when I heard his gasps and grunts. Finally, after about four seconds, he arched up in his chair, and fell back with a sigh.

I rushed up to him. "A-are you alright?" I asked, tears suddenly lining the edges of my eyes.

"I'm fine." He replied, sitting up and rubbing his wrists.

"I thought you were gonna die…" Ashley's voice came from behind us. She and I exchanged glances after a while and she took a deep breath. "Alright, guess I'm up."

I watched intently as she gasped and grunted about as much as Leon, and when it was over I sighed knowing what was about to come next.

"Guess it's my turn, huh?" I knew I was going to have to do one of the hardest things I was ever going to do in my life, I was even risking death, but that didn't matter to me considering it was either that or to turn into one of those freaks and lose control of my body to a parasite. I sat down in the chair and once my arms were strapped to the chair I tried to control my heart rate. The robot arms were lowered and pointed to my torso.

For a split second nothing happened, but then lasers were emitted from the arms and I felt a shocking pain flood through my body. I'd never felt anything like that before, it was a thousand times worse than when Saddler did his little hand thing. I was struggling in my chair; I wanted to get away from that thing, if it hurt that bad something had to have gone wrong. But after about six long seconds, the pain slowly faded and my arms were released.

Leon had rushed up to me like he had done Ashley and crouched down in front of me. "You okay?" He asked for about the third time. When I looked up, the first thing I saw were his lips but I knew I couldn't be tempted. That didn't stop me from biting my own subconsciously, though.

Apparently he noticed and stood up. "Come on." He said and he offered me his hand. I took it gratefully and he helped me stand up, but didn't keep holding on like last time. There was an automatic door facing the operating chair and we entered it and walked up a flight of stairs. There was a note on a table in front of two doors leading back outside. Next to the note were some shotgun shells and a yellow herb. The note read…

_Our mission_

_The real power of the United States lies in three areas. The _

_Justice Department, the Administrative bodies, and the Military. _

_In order to take control of these areas, we must influence the_

_minds of the people who advise the President. After this is done,_

_the rest of the departments will quickly fall under our sway._

_If by chance the United States were to figure out our plan, the_

_damage caused should be minimal. We will still be able to conquer _

_the country as planned using our backup plan. Once we control the _

_country, we will use their international influence to our advantage. _

_The rest of the world will fall swiftly. _

_As already stated, if our first plan doesn't go as smoothly as _

_expected, we'll proceed with our secondary plan. By sending in _

_our "special" forces we will infiltrate the country from within. _

_Fear and chaos will spread through the nation like a virus. It'll _

_only be a matter of time before the country loses its stability. _

_At that time, when they're most vulnerable, we will strike. _

_Rejoice my brethren; the world shall soon be cleansed._

"That's horrible!" Ashley shrieked once I finished translating the letter.

"We won't let that happen, Ash." Leon said, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"Yeah," I agreed. "We're going to stop Saddler one way or another."

She smiled, looking a bit more relieved and we headed out of the doors to the left. It was starting to get bright and I could see another Merchant standing outside, and because we ignored him last time, we decided to buy some First Aid Sprays, another Rocket Launcher for Leon just in case, and upgrade our guns. All of our guns were now at full capacity, fire power, and firing speed. I normally would have been excited, but I had this overwhelming feeling of doom slowly dawning upon me.

"Hey," I said, after we were finished bargaining with the masked man. "How did you get out here so quickly?" We all eyed him suspiciously.

He only chuckled darkly. "I have my ways, Stranger…"

I was too creeped out to say anymore.

There were a few steps and then an elevator about fifty feet east of that.

We walked straight up to it before Leon stopped and turned to us. "You girls wait here. I have a bad feeling about this."

"What do you think's up there?" I asked looking at him with fear and curiosity in my eyes.

He looked at me and I couldn't tell what he was thinking. "I don't know…"

"Let me come with you." I stepped forward. His 'feelings' were almost always right, and if it was as bad as he thought it was, I wanted to be there.

"No, Emily, I don't know what's up there. You could get hurt."

"But Leon, there could be nothing up there, and then this argument would've been pointless."

"Then you should have no problem staying behind."

The truth was I had that bad feeling, too. I felt like whatever was up there would end this whole thing, and _somebody_ was going to die, whether it was me, Leon, Ashley, or even the Merchant. I didn't want him going up there alone.

"Leon, wait." Before I could fully process what I was doing, I walked up to him, stood on my toes and grabbed his face with both of my hands. I brought our faces only inches apart and hesitated. My plan was to kiss him, to prove how much he meant to me, but I didn't want him to be angry with me, and have this demolish any chance I'd ever had with him. I couldn't tell if he knew I was worried or not, but it felt like he was waiting. He wasn't pulling away, but he wasn't moving towards me either.

About three seconds had passed, I finally decided to just do it. I tilted my face up to his, and his lips met mine with the smallest taste of dirt and blood. Ignoring Ashley's gasps behind us, I kissed him with all my might.

_Sorry guys, that's it for this update! And I hate to say but the next will be the last for this story. But I'm still trying to work on my next one so you'll just have to bear with me until I get everything sorted out how I want it. And with school and my niece on the way, it may be a while. But I promise I'll try to get it up as soon as I can. Thanks again and I'll see you next time!_


	47. Chapter 47

_Here you go guys, the very last chapter. Why couldn't I have just included this in the last update, you ask? Well because I'm a dumb and I thought there were 49 chapters instead of 47. Oh well, here you go!_

I slowly walked up to Leon and looked at what he was holding in his hand: a key with a small teddy bear on a keychain with it.

"Very cute," I said, looking up at him. "But uh… what exactly are those for?"

He didn't answer me, just grabbed my hand once again, and nearly ripped my arm out of its socket as he began dashing for the elevator. Good times.

Once we had reached Ashley, he stopped and looked her dead in the eye. "We gotta get off this island now, it's gonna blow any minute."

My eyes grew wide. "Wait, what?!" Ashley and I hollered, but he was already pulling us through a dark tunnel.

"Are you sure this is the way to go?!" I asked once we reached a ladder to jump down.

"No, but do you have any better ideas?"

We all jumped down and continued sprinting for our lives until we reached a small, four seated boat. Leon hopped in first, sitting in the driver's seat, followed by Ashley, then me, sitting in the two seats in the back.

"Hang on to something!" He barely gave us enough time to do as he said before shooting forward at full speed. I'm not going to lie, it was pretty horrifying. Ashley and I clutched onto the rails on the inside of the boat for dear life. I had my eyes squeezed shut, not daring to open them because I knew once I did I'd probably throw up in my seat.

Apparently Ashley had the exact opposite idea because just then she shouted, "Waves, behind us!"

"I know, just hang on!" Leon shouted back before somehow making the boat go even faster.

I could hear rocks falling, and feel the freezing cold water splash into the boat as they fell, with Leon dodging every time. We would tilt one way or the other and I swore we were going to capsize, until finally I saw the light of day through the slits of my eyes. I opened them just a peak and then water spewed from behind us, pushing us out of the tunnel and into the large body of water. We landed with a crash just as the rest of the island exploded, but we were completely unharmed.

He turned off the boat and turned around and looked at us. "Are you girls okay?"

"Absolutely fantastic," I replied, only half sarcastically, coughing up water I had somehow managed to swallow.

He smirked. "Come on, let's go home."

He started the boat once more and Ashley smiled. "Sounds like a great idea… mission accomplished! Right, Leon?"

"Not quite. I still have to get you both home safe."

_Home._ That was something I hadn't thought about in a while. Where would I stay? My parents were dead, as much as I hated to admit it, and I had no other family whatsoever. But I guess these guys were kind of like my family… right?

"Hey… Ash?" I asked after a few minutes of silence.

"Yeah?" She looked over curiously.

"Well I, uh…" How on earth could I go about asking her that? "Well… wh-where am I supposed to stay? M-my parents…"

I fell silent, but she knew what I meant. "I'll talk to my dad, okay? I'm sure he'll understand and he might even let you stay with us for a while." She said with a smile.

"Wh— … seriously? You would do that?"

"Definitely."

I smiled. "Thanks…"

"No problem… So… you and Leon huh?" She smirked over at me and I immediately became very tense. She hadn't spoken very loud, but he was literally sitting right in front of us. There was no doubt that even over the sound of the motor he could hear everything we were saying.

"Wh-what?"

"You heard me! So how was it?!"

I couldn't help but laugh at her obvious fangirling. "Just as amazing as the first time."

"_First time?!_" Okay, I _knew_ he heard that one. Her father had probably heard it back in the states.

"_SHH Shh shh shh shh shh… _Yes, Ashley. I said 'first time.' Now will you just quiet down a _little?_"

She laughed. "Okay! I'm sorry! But you owe some explanations!"

"Maybe later… right now I need to uh…" I nodded my head in the direction of our rescuer and she immediately hushed and winked at me as I moved to the front seat beside him.

As soon as I sat down, Leon's walkie-talkie went off. He answered the call and I heard a familiar voice coming from the other end.

"Leon, can you read me?" She asked and then I remembered who she was.

"Hunnigan is that you?"

"Finally, the line's jack free. What's the status of the mission?"

"I've rescued the subject, along with Emily. We're all returning home safe."

"You did it Leon!"

"Hey Hunnigan… no glasses." Leon said flirtatiously. Maybe he was into her? I leaned back, sitting sideways in the seat, and crossed my legs, observing their conversation.

"May I remind you that you're still on duty," She replied strictly, which seemed to shut him up.

"Story of my life…"

He hung up and I sat forward, getting a quick glance from him. "So Hunnigan, huh?" I said with a smirk.

He shrugged. "Nah, she's not really my type."

I raised my eyebrows and sat up. "Oh? You have a type?"

He shrugged again.

After a few seconds I changed the subject. "So… I might be staying at the white house for a while…"

"I heard." He smirked over at me and I blushed.

"Leon… are we ever going to talk about this?"

He sighed. "You kissed me—"

"Twice." I interrupted.

"Yes, twice, and I may or may not have kissed you back a _little_ both of those times, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything."

And there went my hope. "I-it doesn't?"

He sighed again. "You're young." A mixture of pain and confusion flashed across my eyes and he continued. "Look, I'm not saying no… I'm just saying not right now… okay? If you're serious about this, try again in a few years and maybe, _maybe_, I might think about it."

"So… you're saying you'll try?"

He thought for a second before very carefully saying, "Yes."

A broad smile spread across my face; that was all I needed.

_That's it! Well, it's not the absolute end. There's still It's Only Just Begun, the sequel to this which can be found on my profile. And as I've stated before I'm working on a third installment to the series as well. Well, I've only gotten a few things jotted down but I am trying my best the get something else out there. It may not be what everyone's been hoping for, but I promise I will not disappoint! Well, that's all for now, folks! I'll see you next time!_


End file.
